BODY AND SOUL: george emilio sanchez: Information is medicine

george emilio sanchez (photo: Dave Sanders)

george emilio sanchez, wearing a black winter coat with a wine-purple scarf wrapped and tucked around his neck, stands against a blurred background. With an intent gaze towards the camera, sanchez has salt-and-pepper hair, mustache, and beard.

Still from In the Court of the Conqueror of a home occupying the ancestral lands of Kaskaskia, Tamaroa and Piankishaw Nations among other Mississippian Cultures. Image by Patty Ortiz.

 

The photo shows one side of a long white house surrounded by trees. There's a flagpole bearing the United States flag. At the base of the slide's image, a line of bright red letters spell out NOTYOURLAND.

My guest today, george emilio sanchez, is a passionate and critical voice for our times. A skilled artist and activist, he brings a gift for blending factual historical and cultural knowledge, lived experience, and creative storytelling in solo performances that inform, captivate, and challenge audiences. In this episode of Body and Soul, sanchez discusses a 19th-century Supreme Court ruling that violated indigenous tribal sovereignty; In the Court of the Conqueror, a performance in collaboration with visual artist Patty Ortiz; and The Shed's great exhibition on Brazil's indigenous Yanomami people.

Please forgive the abrupt ending of this episode! Details I edited out--concerning The Yanomami Struggle exhibition at The Shed, a New York City arts space--can be found at https://theshed.org/program/262-the-yanomami-struggle. The exhibition runs through Sunday, April 16, and I do highly recommend it.

To listen to today's podcast with george emilio sanchez, click here!

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Still from In the Court of the Conqueror (photo: Maria Baranova)

Wearing his long white hair loose and a white, long-sleeved cotton shirt, sanchez gazes directly into the camera. He holds his arms and hands outward, left arm crossing in front of his chest, in the middle of a storytelling gesture.

Bio: george emilio sanchez is a writer, performance artist and advocate for indigenous rights and sovereignty.  Currently, he is touring the US with his recent performance collaboration with visual artist, Patty Ortiz, titled In the Court of the Conqueror.  This piece focuses on the 200 year-old history of US Supreme Court rulings that have diminished the Tribal Sovereignty of Native Nations, while also interlacing his individual journey of acknowledging his own indigeneity while being raised in an Ecuadorian immigrant household.  In the Court of the Conqueror premiered at Abrons Arts Center in New York City in March 2022 and has since toured to five states.  george emilio is also the performance director for Emergenyc, a program that experiments with the intersection of arts and activism and is celebrating its 15th year anniversary in 2023.  He was named the inaugural recipient of the Keith Haring Fellow at The MacDowell in 2021. https://www.georgeemiliosanchez.com/