Confronting Convention: Discourse and Innovation in Contemporary Native American Women's Theatre by Tiffany Noell a Dissertati
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Confronting Convention: Discourse and Innovation in Contemporary Native American Women's Theatre by Tiffany Noell A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved April 2011 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Tamara Underiner, Chair Bryan Brayboy Stephani Woodson ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2011 ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I focus on a subset of Native American theatre, one that concentrates on peoples of mixed heritages and the place(s) between worlds that they inhabit. As it is an emergent field of research, one goal of this project is to illuminate its range and depth through an examination of three specific points of focus – plays by Elvira and Hortencia Colorado (Chichimec Otomí/México/US), who create theatre together; Diane Glancy (Cherokee/US); and Marie Clements (Métis/Canada). These plays explore some of the possibilities of (hi)story, culture, and language within the theatrical realm across Turtle Island (North America). I believe the playwrights' positionalities in the liminal space between Native and non-Native realms afford these playwrights a unique ability to facilitate cross-cultural dialogues through recentering Native stories and methodologies. I examine the theatrical works of this select group of mixed heritage playwrights, while focusing on how they open up dialogue(s) between cultures, the larger cultural discourses with which they engage, and their innovations in creating these dialogues. While each playwright features specific mixed heritage characters in certain plays, the focus is generally on the subject matter – themes central to current Native and mixed heritage daily realities. I concentrate on where they engage in cross-cultural discourses and innovations; while there are some common themes across the dissertation, the specific points of analysis are exclusive to each chapter. I employ an interdisciplinary approach, which includes i theories from theatre and performance studies, indigenous knowledge systems, comparative literary studies, rhetoric, and cultural studies. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Elvira and Hortencia Colorado, Diane Glancy, and Marie Clements for their thought-provoking plays. Their works were always fresh and entertaining (no matter how many times I read them). I was especially inspired by the way that their female characters confront and negotiate the worlds around them. So many people have formed my academic support system as I ventured on this journey. I would like to thank Tamara Underiner for being a critical and loving advisor (and dissertation chair), who pushed me to my limits, only to help me discover that my true limits are far beyond what I could have imagined. Thank you for the constant support and challenges, both personally and professionally. I would also like to thank Stephani Etheridge Woodson and Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy for their encouragement in the classroom and in this process. You both introduced me to the theoretical foundations of this dissertation and helped me in my early navigations of those theoretical waters. Also at Arizona State University, I would like to express my gratitude to Roger Bedard, F. Miguel Valenti, Margaret Knapp, and Gitta Honegger for their mentorship and words of encouragement. From the University of South Carolina (though you may be elsewhere now), I would like to thank Amy Lehman and Terry Donovan Smith for preparing me for this journey. I would also like to thank Ann Dreher for sharing with me her unconventional style, both as an educator and as an individual. iii I would never have made it through this process without my partner-in- crime, Kathy Nigh. In the classroom, you always challenged me to do better. In the outside world, you were always there, whether I was venting or celebrating. Thank you for everything. To my friends and colleagues in the Theatre and Performance of the Americas and Theatre for Youth programs, I appreciate your passion, humor, intellect, and joie de vivre. Many others supported me in my personal journey through this process. I would like to thank Paige McDuffie for inspiring me to go to grad school and pursue my passion. Thank you to Lauren McNair for other inspirations and your encouragement over the years. I would like to thank my parents for their love and support in anything I do – a gift I treasure. You both have taught me the importance of tenacity in the face of adversity, a lesson that I continue to value today. Finally, I would like to express my unending gratitude to Becky Thompson, my partner in love and life, art and intellect. You inspire me daily. I would never have made it through this process without your love, support, and occasional “reality checks.” Thank you for going on this journey with me and helping to make it happen. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE...... ............................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 Turtle Island myth…………………………………………1 Overview…………………………………………………..2 Terms…………………………………………………….13 Mestizo, Mixed Blood, and Métis………………………..17 A Note on (Hi)story………..…………………………….29 Borders and Identities……………………………………32 Theatrical Traditions……………………………………..39 Structuring Stories…...…………………………………..48 Scope of Project………………………………………….50 2 ELVIRA AND HORTENCIA COLORADO ...................................... 56 Coatlicue myth…………………………………………...56 Web of Identity…………………………………………..61 Bearing the Border……………………………………….74 ¿Do You Habla Español o Nahuatl?……………………..85 Conclusion……………………………………………….94 3 DIANE GLANCY ................................................................................. 97 Origin of Strawberries myth……………………………..97 Of Earthquakes, Car Radios, and the Subconscious……102 v CHAPTER PAGE Pathways and Crossroads……………………………….112 A Spectrum of Spiritualities..…………………………...125 Conclusion……………………………………………...134 4 MARIE CLEMENTS .......................................................................... 135 Myth of the Sturgeon…………………………………...135 Revealing the Obscured………………………………...138 Collisions, (Re)Constructions, and Transformations…...155 Alternate Historiographies……………………………...169 Conclusion……………………………………………...174 5 FURTHER THOUGHTS .................................................................... 176 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 180 vi PREFACE I begin with one of my memories because in some ways, it is the start of my journey towards my dissertation and wider research interests. The power of memory, both personally and within storytelling and performance, is a thread throughout the works of the mixed heritage playwrights I explore – Elvira and Hortencia Colorado (Chichimec Otomí/México/U.S.), Diane Glancy (Cherokee/US), and Marie Clements (Métis/Canada). Memory through story is a connective force within tribal communities and is an integral part of indigenous methodologies (Moses 195-196). “Storyweaving,” a term coined by the women of Spiderwoman Theatre, describes how personal and tribal stories and memories can be woven together to expose points of connection. Inspired by the place of memory within many tribal communities and the process of storyweaving, I intertwine myths and stories as tribal and personal memories into the frameworks of this project in order to recognize the significance of these accounts and to resituate storying into the dissertation process. While these stories may lose some of their meaning through the translation into English, they are still an important method of understanding indigenous cultures. Stories are an essential part of each woman‟s plays and thus must be central to this dissertation. This first story not only denotes my personal journey but also points to the myriad of experiences and obstacles lived by individuals of mixed heritage. Now that I‟m a junior in high school, it is time to start thinking about colleges. I am a good student but in need of a scholarship in order to vii attend college. My mom suggests that I should think about getting enrolled with the Cherokee tribe as a way to gain more scholarship money. This is a startling moment, as it is the first time I associate myself and my Cherokee heritage with a living culture, a living people. Growing up, I knew in a distant way that some of my ancestry was Cherokee, yet I did not know any Cherokee people. All I knew about the Cherokee came from school and Girl Scouts, that they were remnants of a culture that, according to the Girl Scouts, hardly even exist anymore. I had learned about the Trail of Tears in history class; this history lesson probably led to my naïve belief that all of the Cherokee had been moved from the South to Oklahoma. But my mother‟s suggestion compels me to consider that there were many people like my ancestors, who remained in the South, refusing to leave their homes, even if it meant hiding from all white people and/or assimilating in order to survive. Today, I live with the consequences of the decisions of my ancestors. Yes, I have all of the privileges of the white racial label. However, they also left me unable to connect directly with my heritage because of generations of assimilation. The only archival connection I have found dates to the Dawes Commission Roll of 1898. Tribal enrollment requires ancestral names on the Baker Roll of 1924, thus denying me and my generation