Indigenous Voices Speak out at BU
This article was first published in BU Today on October 13, 2021. By Joel Brown. Photos by Janice Checchio
EXCERPT
The fearsome creature bursts through the turf on the edge of George Sherman Union Plaza like a sea monster but on land, with a serious purpose: to remind all who see it that Boston University’s Charles River Campus is built on what was once river and marsh, inhabited by indigenous people who have been largely erased since the arrival of the Mayflower.
“This is Unktehi, a water spirit,” says sculptor Erin Genia, a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Dakota Nation. “It’s a mythical creature of Dakota legend, in which Unktehi goes to battle with thunderbirds, called Wakinyan. The story basically describes climate change, with the Wakinyan being the spirits of the storms and wind. I wanted to recreate the landscape to show the story and how this water spirit is very much alive in this place, even though we filled in the land here. It’s a message about the past, but also the present.”
The installation marks the full start of Indigenous Voices in the Americas—an interdisciplinary series organized by the BU Arts Initiative to highlight indigenous artistic voices, which runs through the 2021–2022 academic year. In part, the series is an acknowledgement of the fact that the University sits on the unceded ancestral land of the Massachusett people.
Among other events, the School of Theatre will host a residency by artist Ty Defoe of the Ojibwe and Oneida Nations later this semester. His visits will culminate in performances of Patterns of Wind at the Booth Theatre, December 3 to 5, a devised theatre piece developed by Defoe in collaboration with guest artist Katherine Freer, interweaving indigenous oral storytelling traditions and contemporary multimedia performance, with both students and indigenous performers.
“There’s a large movement in theater and a lot of places now to start your performance or your meeting or your event with a land acknowledgement,” says Susan Mickey, director of the School of Theatre and CFA professor of theatre, design, and production/costume design. Generally that’s a brief announcement nodding to the original inhabitants, and “I felt we needed to dig deeper into the meaning and the purpose of those words.
“It’s important that we respond to the times and how we are approaching identity in the theater, both our own and others,” Mickey says.
The Arts Initiative has also made grants available to others in the University community who had an idea for the Indigenous Voices in the Americas series, including Adam Hannah (CFA’24), a trombonist and doctoral student at the School of Music who is also a member of the Chickasaw Nation and affiliate faculty with BU’s Center for Antiracist Research.
“I’ve always wanted to become a trombone soloist,” says Hanna, adding that he wanted to step up to that role with a work connected to his Native American heritage. “There aren’t that many indigenous composers that are in the public eye, and I don’t have the gift of composition. So, I thought, OK, I’ve got to commission the work.”
He began googling, and the most prominent indigenous composer he found was Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, another member of the Chickasaw Nation. The Chickasaw Tribe is quite small, says Hanna, who grew up in southern Oklahoma.
“I said, that name sounds familiar. Well, it turns out we are from the same town and the same tribe,” Hanna says. “Wow, what an opportunity.”
Tate just released a CD with the San Francisco Symphony and writes music for the series Westworld on HBO. Hanna’s plan is to commission Tate to write a concerto for trombone and orchestra and perform it as soloist here at BU. It’s an ambitious plan, but with a seed grant from the Arts Initiative, he is well into fundraising to make it a reality, with grants from the city of Boston, the Chickasaw Nation, and others.