THEN A CUNNING VOICE AND A NIGHT WE SPEND GAZING AT STARS an all-night exchange of stories, dance, ideas, food, stars & sky a project of EMILY JOHNSON / CATALYST ARTIST STATEMENT Writing these questions with the Native American Community Development Initia- WHAT DO YOU WANT tive in 2013, we focused on the want. We focused on future imagined possibilities. We imagined people imagining, speaking, writing ideas beyond the locus of the usual. FOR YOUR WELL-BEING? We wanted ourselves, our chosen families and friends, our communities—momen- tary, long-standing, small or large—to envision a future that is different from the one we are on a path toward. We need the boundless possibility that comes from resting our bodies so deeply into the ground we feel connected to it. We need the boundless possibility that comes from the simple action of looking into the sky. We need the FOR YOUR CHOSEN boundless possibility of seeing our actions and thoughts in relation to ground and sky—as a deep part of this world. FAMILY AND FRIENDS? I want to welcome you. I want to step into this night with you. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD? I want to step into a different future with you. YOUR CITY, TOWN, We can be boundless—from ground to sky. OR RESERVE? It is celebratory, to come together like this. —EMILY JOHNSON DANCE & PERFORMANCE RICHLY CRAFTED ENCOUNTERS Beginning at dusk and continuing until after sunrise, Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars is a gathering that weaves together stories and performance with the exchange of ideas, the sharing of food, and the endurance of spending a night together outside under the stars and sky. Throughout the night, the audience is guided through a series of richly crafted encounters—part ritual, part lyrical adventure—created by Emily Johnson (Yup’ik) in collaboration with performers Tania Isaac and 13-year-old Georgia Lucas, and directed by Ain Gordon. A group walk. A series of self-illuminated duets and solos. Stories and song. Gathering around a fire, a feast, conversations, silences and welcoming a new day. It engages audience members in a multi-layered, participatory experience designed to focus attention on the space we share, the histories we hold, and how we might envision our future, together. All this unfolds under the night sky, at an outdoor gathering space. Both the audience and performers share space in and around 84 quilts that create a 4,000 square foot arena. This interaction of place, community vision and performance relies upon individuals coming together to witness, work, experience time, rest, imagine and voice inten- tions. FOOD & FEASTING GUESTS IN THIS LAND Food is labour. Food is knowledge. Food is technology. Food is energy. Throughout Then a Cunning Voice... food both sustains the audience, and brings them closer together. For each location, a menu is crafted by Food Futurist Jen Rae (Metis) that represents Indigenous food system knowledge and practices. Rae uses seasonally harvested local produce and foods that are foraged, hunted, gifted, bartered, and/or indigenous to the soils locality, as well as the artists’ homelands in Alaska and Australia. Volunteers from the audience join in the process of preparing these offerings, which include snacks delivered to the participants in self-illuminated picnic baskets. The baskets create hubs of light in the darkness that draw together new groupings and forge new connections and conversations—as people gather to taste and share. In the heart of the night, the quilts are reconfigured into a communal “table” for a shared feast. Before the meal arrives, details are offered about the food, its source and its intentions. The perspective draws on the locality, Indigenous practices and perspectives, and food systems knowledge. The feast sets the stage for an hour-long conversation guided by the cast that circulates a question: “What does it mean to be a guests in this land?” In the morning, a final meal is shared featuring yoghurt that has been cultured overnight. An apt metaphor for what has been “cultivated” during the shared time. IDEAS & VISIONS MAPPED IN COMMUNITY Communities around the world have shared their visions for the future on 84 quilts that form a single 4,000 square foot design, created by textile artist Maggie Thompson (Ojibwe) and volunteers in over three years of community sewing bees. These quilts transport messages from individuals in communities throughout the U.S., Australia and Taiwan, among a growing list of contributors. They are responses to the work’s central questions: “What do you want for your well-being? For the well-being of your chosen friends and family? For your neighborhood? For your town, city, reserve, tribal nation, world?” It’s a crowd-sourced visioning process that continues even now. The quilts serve as audience seating, performance area, resting area, and “home” for the duration. Deep in the night, young Georgia directly engages audience members in conversations about these messages. Her questions invite open responses and reflections from the audience, and gradually turn the conversation to an exchange about their individual desires for the future. The night offers much-needed space for connection between people near and far, between youth and elders, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, and between urban and rural experiences—with an emphasis on engaged citizenship. STORIES & SHARING PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Each iteration of Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars is conjured with local stewards who help enact the work, and community performers and voices who make distinct contributions to the experience. Local song, knowledge and community visions are woven into the night. Between dances and the sharing of food and conversations, three “fires” are held where local storytellers, elders and community leaders share histories, perspectives and hopes for this particular place. One fire is a simple grouping of tea candles. Another shines with electric light—a reconfigured costume that has been shed. One more, a wood fire tended and cared for. The audience spends time moving among these three fires. A time of listening to oral histories and a giving of attention to new voices. To forging new intimacies. To learning about past, present and future, grounded in this place. EXCHANGE & GROUNDED PARTNERSHIP IN THIS PLACE The work is made possible and realized through partnership within each locality. Urban, Indigenous, agricultural, art and other community partnerships are devel- oped in collaboration with local presenters. To date, the project has received input, contributions of time, labor, space and connectivity from: IN THE U.S. ALASKA: Anchorage Museum. ARIZONA: Pima Arts Council. CALIFORNIA: Headlands Center for the Arts, Point Arena Manchester Dancers, Ohlone Profiles Project. FLORIDA: Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. MINNESOTA: Two Rivers Gallery, Makwa Studio, Native American Community Development Institute, Northern Spark, Richfield Farmers Market, Richfield Library.ILLINOIS : City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs, Envision Unlimited. MASSACHUSETTS: Makers Mill, Williams College, Williamstown Farmers Market, The Clark, MASS MoCA, Mohawk Forest Resident Development Initiative, Common Threads Initiative. NEBRASKA: Bemis Center for the Arts. NEW YORK: The Lenape Center, Performance Space 122, Abrons Art Center, Broome Street Academy, Gibney Dance, Ace Hotel New York, Ideas City at New Museum, Randall’s Island Park Alliance, Urban Farm on Randall’s Island, New York Live Arts, Lower Eastside Girls Club, The Wassaic Project. IN AUSTRALIA NARRM/MELBOURNE: ArtsHouse Melbourne, City of Melbourne, St. Joseph’s Flexible Learning Center, SHORE: Feast at MeatMarket. NATIMUK: Time Place Space Residency with ArtsHouse and City of Natimuk. SYDNEY: Critical Path. PRODUCTION DETAILS FUNDING CREDITS PRODUCTION CREDITS Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars premiered in Created by September 2016 on Governer’s Island, presented by P.S. 122, and numerous Emily Johnson in deep collaboration with the performers community partners. Artistic Director Emily Johnson Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars was created with generous support from MAP Fund and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ Directed by National Dance Project, with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Ain Gordon and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Performers Tania Isaac, Emily Johnson, Georgia Lucas The project was developed with the support of residencies at Push Festival (Vancouver, BC), Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (Tallahassee, FL), Designer and Textile Artist and a Forecast Public Art/RARE Residency (Richfield, MN). Maggie Thompson Lighting Designer Lenore Doxsee Artist and Food Futurist Jen Rae Produced by Meredith Boggia Stage Manager Matt Evans Recorded Sound and Story Contributors James Everest, Julia Bither, Margot Bassett-Silver PRESENTING DETAILS PROTOCOLS Catalyst requires all Presenter and all Presenting Partners collaborating on the RUN TIME presentation of Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars to Approximately 15 hours, timed from dusk to after sunrise learn and comply with Indigenous Protocol and acknowledgement of its host Nation. LOCATIONS & STAGING Additionally, the audience is provided with the following protocols, refined to reflect Suitable locations will be determined in conversation with the creative team, but the the host Nation at each location: work is best situated at a close-remove from urban centers, in parks or open spaces where ambient and artificial light can be minimized. Sites that have a direct relation- By attending Then a Cunning Voice and A Night We Spend Gazing at Stars you ship to water are best. acknowledge: — You are on Indigenous land [specific acknowledgements will be crafted in each ENGAGEMENT PROCESS locality], and you pay respect to their people, land, and ancestors past, present, Advance site visits are required, beginning six to ten months prior to presentation. and future. PRODUCTION SCHEDULE — This is an Indigenous led process.