"Native American Realness": Address/redress cultural appropriation

Rosy Simas and Christopher K. Morgan
(photos: Tim Rummelhoff and Brianne Bland)

On Saturday, January 7, American Realness 2017 presented a conversation featuring Native American choreographers Rosy Simas (Seneca) and Christopher K. Morgan (Native Hawaiian) with Sara Nash, Program Director, New England Foundation for the Arts at Brooklyn's ISSUE Project Room.

The afternoon session was organized by American Realness in response to concerns first raised in mid-December by Simas about the APAP-related festival's planned programming of a solo performance by Latifa Laâbissi, a French national of Moroccan lineage. (See Rosy Simas Reads Laâbissi’s "Self Portrait Camouflage", InfiniteBody, December 13, 2016.)  Sima's complaint and subsequent conversations with American Realness founder, curator and producer Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor led to an apology statement from Pryor, who had programmed the Laâbissi show in collaboration with MoMA PS1 associate curator--now Executive Artistic Director of Performance Space 122--Jenny Schlenka. Although Pryor quickly withdrew his organization's co-sponsorship of the Laâbissi event, MoMA PS1 kept the show on its APAP schedule. In the meantime, Simas and Laâbissi had an extensive conversation about the issue. 

The Native American Realness forum was convened on Saturday:

"to discuss the state of Native American performance work across the US and the epidemic of institutional negligence, insensitivity and attempted erasure of and towards Native American / Indigenous / First Nations’ values, histories and contributions to contemporary artistic practice. This conversation seeks to investigate how our dominant culture’s historical insensitivity aids in forms of cultural appropriation, Redface, and racism in artistic practice, spectatorship and presenting. Does Redface sell? Is curating Native artists seen as risky, unsellable, or uninteresting, or does this speak to institutional and societal ignorance?"

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.--co-founder, with Ricarrdo Valentine, of Brotherhood Dance!--attended this session and contributes a report.

Native American Realness

by guest contributor

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.

Native American Realness was nothing short of a resistance that's been happening for over 500 hundred years. Artist Rosy Simas from Minneapolis initially sparked what's part of a larger fire as it relates to indigenous performance, life and well-being. Simas challenged the annual American Realness festival to reexamine why it would present Latifa Laâbissi's Self Portrait Camouflage, a Red Face performance, an appropriation by an artist who may or may not have done the research on indigenous performance.

Laâbissi was not there to defend her work and dialogue with Simas. Should she have been?

The conversation opened with each person stating their names and if they belonged to any indigenous nation--a traditional way of opening the space and filling it with ourselves and our ancestors. The first questions posed for the room were loaded yet poignant: What is "Red Face" and why is it problematic? Why is it programmed? We further questioned: Why does Red Face programming get funded in the United States while Native American artists do not? Boundaries were set so that Indigenous people in the room would speak first.

It should be noted that not every cultural institution would have the integrity to share their failure so publicly and be willing to host the provocateur and many others who stand in solidarity. And they did this only a month after the controversy arose. Response plus action.

Red Face is a racialized representation of Native American people similar to Black Face in America. Red Face is the impersonation of Native American people by white people of European descent, though not exclusively. People of color can also objectify their own cultures as well as others. Educational structures and cultural production sectors use this and other similar mechanisms to control the image of Native Americans. These efforts continue to write Native Americans out of their own stories, never affording space or access to funding for Native Americans to write their truths.

As the conversation progressed, further challenges emerged around intention and the research process. Who is authentic? For bodies of color, entering European performance spaces is a radical act in and of itself.

Participants questioned how context can be provided for the audience. Should it even be provided? When it comes to esthetics, what is disruptive? If the standard is European esthetics, then we must question who is radical. Someone mentioned a recent performance by Will Rawls that was sourced in Balkan dance traditions. What does "radical" mean for different cultures? In the words of Rosy Simas, "If an artist says it's radical, shouldn't we believe them?" Contextualizing performance is left up to the artist who must negotiate how much they want to let the audience in on their intended communication.

As the ninety-minute conversation ended, everyone realized that this was only a beginning to the work of excavating the dissociative culture we live in and its reluctance to process the trauma suffered by indigenous cultures. How do we heal?

Native American Realness was an opportunity for cultural workers and community members to have open dialogue about the misrepresentation and appropriation of Native culture and performance. This conversation was an example of how cultural production platforms and artists can work together to incite change, offering healing resistance with rigorous dialogue and harmonious creative space.

Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr.
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Orlando Zane Hunter Jr. is a choreographer and dancer who researches, illustrates and creates from an African-American male perspective. In his work, he tackles issues resulting from a capitalistic imperialist patriarchal white supremacist system. Hunter grew up dancing hip-hop and graduated with a BFA in Dance from University of Minnesota, where he performed works by Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Carl Flink, Louis Falco, Colleen Thomas, Uri Sands, Stephen Petronio and Nora Chipaumire. His solo Mutiny was selected to represent the University of Minnesota at the 2011 ACDFA gala in Madison, Wisconsin. Orlando studied LGBT activism and history in Amsterdam and Berlin. He has performed with Christal Brown/INspirit Dance Company, Contempo Physical Dance, Forces of Nature, Makeda Thomas, Threads Dance Project, TU Dance and Ananya Dance Theater, an all-women’s company where he was the first male member and toured with them to Trinidad & Tobago and Zimbabwe. Hunter is a co-founder of the collective Brother(hood) Dance!

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Rosy Simas reads Laâbissi’s "Self Portrait Camouflage"

Choreographer Rosy Simas
(photo courtesy of the artist)

On Sunday, January 8, MoMA PS1 and the American Realness festival will co-present Self Portrait Camouflage, an hour-long performance by France's Latifa Laâbissi, a dance artist raised in France by Moroccan immigrant parents. Curated by Jenny Schlenzka, the work is described on the festival's website as a use of

"tropes of caricature and the grotesque to conjure the silent aggressions and tensions at the heart of some immigrant experiences. Performing the piece naked, in bright spotlight against a sterile white backdrop, fully exposed to the world, Laâbissi becomes an object to be gazed at, studied, and scientifically dissected—evoking the imperialist custom of exhibiting indigenous people at World’s Fairs. Against the backdrop of recent anti-immigrant populism in the U.S. as well as the rest of the Western world, Laâbissi’s themes of 19th century representational politics and marginalization acquire new relevance."

Minneapolis-based choreographer Rosy Simas, who is Native American (Seneca, Heron Clan) addresses Laâbissi’s performance in the following statement posted last evening on Facebook. I have reached out to Ben Pryor, American Realness director and curator, for his response and will report back to you once I have heard from him.

*****

December 12, 2016

Dear MoMA PS1, American Realness, and Latifa Laâbissi:
I am writing to express my utter disbelief and outrage at the proposed production of Latifa Laâbissi’s Self Portrait Camouflage for the American Realness program. In the eyes of the Native American community, this production is an aggressive act of hate speech, cultural appropriation, and sacrilege.

My name is Rosy Simas. I am Seneca, Heron Clan. I am the fifth great-granddaughter of Cornplanter, the chief who negotiated with George Washington. My whole family line is of negotiators who have worked to create more understanding between our peoples.

I am a Minneapolis-based dance maker, a moving image maker, a performer, teacher, and an activist. I am a nationally known artist who has toured all over the U.S. and Canada. I am a Guggenheim fellow, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation fellow, a First People’s Fund fellow, and a McKnight fellow. My work is currently funded by NEFA National Dance Project and National Performance Network Creation Fund.

So I am speaking to you as an expert in the field of choreography and as a practicing cultural artist.
I want to explain as best I can why the production of Latifa Laâbissi’s Self Portrait Camouflage is traumatizing to Native women, disrespectful to Native peoples, and an act of white supremacy at MoMA PS1 and the American Realness Festival in NYC. 

I am also going to tell you what can be done on the part of the presenters and the artist to apologize for this atrocity and where you can begin to reconcile.

The description of this work says it is highly personal and that the performer is nude throughout the piece.

She is not Native American, yet the only thing she is wearing is something sacred to Native culture, a Native American headdress, the scared symbol of the Sioux Nations (the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples). Obviously the headdress is fake. Laâbissi would not be allowed to own sacred eagle feathers. Any artist of her stature SHOULD have taken the time to research the subject matter. The production has already been touring for some time now; in fact, this is the second presentation in New York City. The artist has had years to learn about Native people and sacred Sioux headdresses.

Second, the work cannot be highly personal when the weight of it is in the images. She wears the headdress through the whole piece. There is nothing highly personal in the appropriation of a sacred object of another people.

This is America. We are the First Americans. We are Native Americans. And there is nothing real in a non-Native choreographer pretending to be Native on stage. So this is not only offensive — but it is about as far from “American realness” as you can get.

Why would MoMA PS1 and American Realness want to add to the systematic genocide and erasure of Native people? Because that is what this production does.

Why doesn’t the artist draw from her own cultural experience if she is making a highly personal work?

European settlers, American culture and Hollywood has historically objectified, sexualized, and exotified Native women for hundreds of years. It is common to see the sexy mostly nude “squaw” sometimes with a headdress at Halloween, in pornography, in advertising and marketing. We have been and are still treated as if we are just a historic people of the past.

One really must be out of touch to not know that thousands of Native women have been missing in Canada and the U.S. The rape and murder of Native women has been devastating to our people over the past few hundred years -- and it continues today.

So when I see these images of Laâbissi, that is what I see. I see a non-Native woman in a fake headdress performing naked. I see a mockery of who Native women are. And I see a stage reserved for whiteness excusing itself from responsibility because it is an international person of color performing this mockery. 

These images are traumatizing to Native people. Imagine what it triggers for Native women who have been raped and the families of those women who have been murdered and/or are still missing?

Images like this remind those women, remind all of us Native Americans, that we don’t matter and we do not even exist in your eyes.

What needs to happen next:

1) A public apology from the presenters and the artist needs to be issued immediately.

2) This performance should not go on as planned. Laâbissi needs to take off the headdress minimally. A cancellation of the production would be better, and in its place, a public forum led by Native artists on our work should be held, in which stereotypes and cultural appropriation can be dismantled.

3) A commitment from MoMA PS1 and American Realness to present and support contemporary Native American artists.

If this production proceeds as planned and advertised, MoMA PS1 and American Realness can expect a loud, sustained, and highly visible protest. As demonstrated by the Standing Rock Water Protectors in recent months, Native Americans will not quietly tolerate and accept the theft of our territories, the violent rape of our land, the appropriation and profaning of our religious beliefs, and colonization of our bodies.

Please contact me directly so we can begin to correct this injustice and work toward authentic reconciliation.

Nya:weh Sgeno,

Rosy Simas 

Choreographer

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Eat, dance and be merry!

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) invite you to two full days of complimentary dancing, workshops, and cutting-edge cuisine.

Friday, September 11:

10am–12pm: Workshop with French choreographer Pierre Rigal

1–6pm: Dance Class with Odile Duboc, Latifa Laâbissi, Olivier Dubois, and Germaine Acogny (represented by Nora Chipaumire)

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Studio 6A
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan

Saturday, September 12:

1–6pm: Le Bal NYC

Central Park, East Meadow
Entrance on Fifth Ave and 99th Street, Manhattan

Kindly RSVP by calling 646-731-3206 before Wednesday, September 2.

Program

On Friday, September 11, attend a workshop with world-renowned choreographer Pierre Rigal at Baryshnikov Arts Center, followed by a fun and invigorating class with four of France’s most respected choreographers: Odile Duboc, Latifa Laâbissi, Olivier Dubois, and Germaine Acogny (represented by Nora Chipaumire). Each choreographer will teach brand new dances created especially for Le Bal NYC, the free public dance party/picnic in Central Park that will launch FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival the next day.

Then, on Saturday, September 12 you’ll attend Le Bal NYC and assist the choreographers in teaching the dances you’ve just learned to the crowd in the Park—all while sampling snacks created by some of the hottest chefs in France and NYC!

What is Le Bal NYC?

A fresh new take on some classic French traditions, the “bal populaire” and the “pique-nique” are reinvented as Crossing the Line is launched on the East Meadow in Central Park. French choreographers Odile Duboc, Latifa Laâbissi, Olivier Dubois, and Germaine Acogny have specially created short new dances to be taught section by section to the public. As both audience and performers of the new work, participants get an insider’s look into the mechanics of contemporary choreography as well as the creative imagination of dance personalities. To sate the appetite of all these dancing feet, the Omnivore “brigade” will be creating special Crossing the Line Bento Boxes—a unique vision of the picnic with different elements created by innovative master chefs Inaki Aizpitarte, Alexandre Gauthier, Pascal Barbot, and Michel Bras from France, as well as New York’s David Chang and Wylie Dufresne.

Dancers of all ages are invited to participate in Le Bal NYC, a unique celebration set to take place in East Meadow, Central Park on Saturday, September 12, 2009.

Le Bal NYC

What is Crossing the Line?

Crossing the Line is FIAF’s annual fall festival, conceived as a platform to present vibrant new works by a diverse range of transdisciplinary artists working in France and New York City. Initiated, conceived, and produced by FIAF (the French Institute Alliance Française) in partnership with leading New York cultural institutions, the third annual edition of this inter-disciplinary contemporary arts festival further develops its focus on artists who are transforming cultural practices on both sides of the Atlantic. Over three intensive weeks this fall—whether by performing shopping, watching sounds, composing films, or reading movements—audiences will join in exploring and tasting a unique collection of outstanding new works and experiences, and discovering new revelations from each of these extraordinary artists.

Crossing the Line

French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues, Manhattan