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| Speaking
the Unspeakable |
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Genocide
Trail: a holocaust un-spoken
October 10 - 26
Wed. and Thurs. at 7:30 p.m., Fri. and Sat.
8 p.m., Sunday matinee at 3 p.m.
Presented by Seattle Central Community College,
in association with the Conciliation Project
Conceived and Directed by Tawnya Pettiford
-Wates, Ph.D. The Bathhouse Theater
7312 W. Greenlake Drive N, 206-524-1300.
Tickets $15 general admission, $10 with Student
or Senior Citizen ID
For tickets, call Ticket Window, 206-325-6500
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Susan Platt |
Whenever you dance
Wherever you dance
Dance to heal the earth....
Genocide Trail begins with a chant, followed
by an invocation to our Grandmothers and Grandfathers
to "be with us tonight." Warrior
chiefs recite a prayer poem.
From this meditative beginning, a ritual poetic
drama, based in its form on African roots
and other sources, reveals the history of
the oppression of native Americans. Song,
chant, dance, and music are the means of communication.
There is almost no dialog in which people
actually communicate, only speeches, pronouncements,
prejudiced cliches, and poetic invocations.
Historical figures pass through - Christopher
Columbus, Queen Isabella, Buffalo Bill, Colonel
Custer, Andrew Jackson, Captain John Smith
and Pocohontas (after Disney) - but collective
voices and types of people create the drama.
There are white women as wives of soldiers
- "We must strike first or we will all
be lost" - as temptresses, as an oppressive
missionary, as harsh schoolteachers in the
boarding schools, as a quiz show host, as
a sympathetic psycho-talk show host, and as
a new age Indian wannabe. All of these parts
(and others) are played, complete with song
and dance routines, by Amanda Carraway, Joan
Williams, and Kimberly Cook. White guys are
the historical figures as well as "Good
white person," "Definitely Not Guilty,"
dumb white guys assaulting and harassing natives
- "They were weak and we were strong."
Called White Minstrels, Dennis James Hardin,
Matt Peterson, and Nicolas Townsend transform
from one type of racist to another.
The Red Minstrels are the women of the trail
of tears, giving birth as they walk along.
"It is hard to speak of what has been
taken"; the mothers, the daughters, the
victims of the mission and boarding school
oppressions, poetic sources of wisdom, the
celebration of native ideas. They are played
by Myla Flores, Unyoung Kim, and Donyell Spotsville.
Joe McLaughlin plays the Brave who is subjected
to repeated harassment and insults. "I
am a Lakota brave, I am a Navaho, I am the
spirit that never dies. I am 400 Treaties
broken, I am Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, Pawnee,
Narragansett, Mohican." Tecumseh, the
great Indian leader with a vision of an all-Indian
alliance to resist white men, is invoked but
not impersonated, nor are any other historical
chiefs named. Two chiefs "Above the Clouds"
and "Above the Clouds too," played
by Ric Garcia and Vanessa G. Edwards, appear
and reappear, chanting alternative world views
and resistance: "They want to assimilate
us. To become them will destroy us as a people.
They want to possess land and gold. We want
freedom. We do not want power. Your freedom
is not free. It is not just."
At the end, the cast gradually reveals their
own identities as they set up the dichotomy,
"I am the Red Clay of my Mother Earth,
I am content in you," as opposed to "I
need more, more, more."
The purpose of the play is to stimulate the
audience to understand our own place in a
racist society. There was an intentional resonance
with 9/11: at the end, images of the ruins
of the World Trade Center are projected on
the red, white, and blue teepee that forms
the center of the set. There are also parallels
to recent political speeches. The speech calling
for retribution for Custer's Last Stand sounds
exactly like Bush going after terrorists everywhere,
all the time.
At the end the cast asks the audience how
we feel.
For me, as I looked at this presentation of
racism in America, I thought of the fact that
native culture still survives, albeit in a
new and transformed state, in the early 21st
century. That is a powerful source of hope.
If brutal racism throughout our history has
not eliminated Native Americans, it will hopefully
not eliminate the rest of the planet either.
Humans acting collectively and poetically
can resist oppression as well as racism.
Other audience members offered: "I felt
truth, I felt redemption"; " I felt
we're making the same mistakes"; "The
dialogs had to do with what is happening now";
"There can be some resolve, some community
some coming together."
And finally from one of the cast members:
"Hope begins from within."
Holocaust un-spoken is part of a cycle of
five plays intended to stimulate dialogue
that will begin to break down racism through
communication and discussion. The other four
plays - not all of them written yet - are
Yellow Fever: The Internment, uncle tom deconstructed
(sic), Stolen Land: Who named me Hispanic,
Females: Global Sexism Condoned and Commended.
The Conciliation Project will document Genocide
Trail with a video, study guide, and workbook
that can be used in communities and schools
as a means of opening up and beginning to
heal racism in our community.
Don't overlook the art exhibition in the Bathhouse
Theater lobby organized by Angelena McQuarter.
Ten visual artists, working in many media,
address native American oppression and cultural
transformation. My favorite pieces were Eddie
Hill's densely packed collage centering around
Chief Seattle, Angelena McQuarter's oversized
handwoven dolls, Uncle Tomahawk and Blackfoot,
and Deborah Lawrence's tray painting that
commemorates Leonard Peltier, the Native American
activist who has spent most of his life in
U.S. prisons. Her second work is titled, "Under
My Wings Everything Prospers" and includes
a text by Chief Standing Bear, Land of the
Spotted Eagle.
To purchase tickets or find out more information
about the Conciliation Project benefit on
November 10, call 206-287-5544.
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