Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T14:41:25.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Culture Creators and Interconnected Individualism: Rulan Tangen and Anne Pesata's Basket Weaving Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

Tria Blu Wakpa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article meditates on the interconnectedness of the making and meaning of an Indigenous contemporary dance work that draws on intergenerational Jicarilla Apache basket weaving practices. Rulan Tangen choreographed the piece, performed by Anne Pesata, which is inspired by Pesata's lived experiences as a Jicarilla Apache woman and fifth generation basket weaver. Tangen—who identifies as mixed culturally, including Native, Polynesian, and European heritages—founded and directs Dancing Earth: Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations, an intertribal company which originated in 2004. Tangen created the piece in February 2014 to honor Pesata and other Indigenous women leaders. The choreographer's commitment to undertaking projects that respond to Native elders' contemporary concerns and dancers' interests also guides its themes. Alongside music, the piece uses recorded voiceover that Pesata created and spoke. The voiceover makes transparent Pesata's familial connections with basket weaving and other Jicarilla Apache epistemologies and practices. The dance also elucidates relationships between basket weaving and Pesata's movements throughout, culminating in the creation of a figurative basket. According to Pesata, the dance “tells the story of the journey that you go through in making a basket from start to finish.”

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 1: Indigenous Dance Today , April 2016 , pp. 107 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Corntassel, Jeff. 2012. “Re-Envisioning Resurgence: Indigenous Pathways to Decolonization and Sustainable Self-Determination.” Indigeneity, Education & Society 1(1): 86–101.Google Scholar
Derksen, Cris. 2010. “We Danced Mvement 1.” Cusp. Song. Performed by Derksen, Cris. Vancouver: Independent. http://crisderksen.virb.com/the-cusp#.Google Scholar
Freire, Paulo. 1990. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Goeman, Mishuana. 2013. Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Hamera, Judith. 2007. Dancing Community: Performance, Difference and Connection in the Global City. New York: Palgrave Macmillian.Google Scholar
Huhndorf, Shari M. 2009. Mapping the Americas: The Transnational Politics of Contemporary Native Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Huhndorf, Shari M., and Suzack, Cheryl. 2010. “Indigenous Feminism: Theorizing the Issues.” In Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, edited by Suzack, Cheryl, Huhndorf, Shari M., Perreault, Jeanne, and Barman, Jean, 1–17. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, Michelle M. 2013. Yakama Rising: Indigenous Cultural Revitalization, Activism, and Healing. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
“Jicarilla Apache Nation History.” N.d. Jicarilla Apache Tribe. http://www.jicarillaonline.com/History/jic_apachehistory.html. Accessed November 11, 2015.Google Scholar
Leray, Louis. 2014a. Basket Weaving Solo. Film. Performed by Anne Pesata. Santa Fe, NM: Weblink.Google Scholar
Leray, Louis. 2014b. Dancing Earth Ten Year Anniversary Show: An Evening of Earth and Sky. Film. Performed by Pesata, Anne. Santa Fe, NM: Weblink.Google Scholar
Lyons, Scott Richard. 2010. X-Marks: Native Signatures of Assent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrew, W.C. 1992. Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for Human Evolution. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, Malea. 2014. “A Basket Is a Basket Because… : Telling a Native Rhetorics Story.” In The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature, edited by H, James. Cox and Daniel Heath Justice, 471–483. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. 2013. “Transformative Moves: Indigenous Epistemologies in Indigenous Contemporary Dance.” Presentation at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR, June 9.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. 2014. Dancing Earth Ten Year Anniversary Show: An Evening of Earth and Sky. Film. Performed by Pesata, Anne. Santa Fe, NM: Weblink.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. 2015. “A Compelling Way of Understanding the World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Shea Murphy.” Triple Dog Dare: The ODC Theater Writer in Residence Blog. By Marie Tollon. https://thetripledogdare.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/a-compelling-way-of-understanding-the-world-a-conversation-with-jacqueline-shea-murphy-by-marie-tollon/.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. Forthcoming. “Dancing in the Here and Now: Indigenous Presence and the Contemporary Choreography of Emily Johnson/Catalyst and DANCING EARTH.” Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics.Google Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2007. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. 10th ed.London: ZedBooks Ltd.Google Scholar
Tollon, Marie. 2015. “A Compelling Way of Understanding the World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Shea Murphy.” Triple Dog Dare: The ODC Theater Writer in Residence Blog.Google Scholar
Tsosie, Rebecca. 2010. “Native Women and Leadership: An Ethics of Culture and Survival.” In Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture, , edited by Suzack, Cheryl, Huhndorf, Shari M., Perreault, Jeanne, and Barman, Jean, 29–42. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Waziyatawin Angela, and Bird, Michael Yellow, Eds. 2005. For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Young, Harvey. 2010. Embodying the Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar