Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T13:57:55.086Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dee(a)r Spine: Dance, Dramaturgy, and the Repatriation of Indigenous Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

Sam Mitchell  and
Julie Burelle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This dialogue between artist and dramaturg documents the creation of Dee(a)r Spine, Sam Mitchell's adaptation of the Yaqui Deer Dance, performed on Kumeyaay territory at the University of California, San Diego. Weaving reflections on dance, dramaturgy, and methodology, this article posits that dancing offers a pathway to the repatriation of Indigenous memory and kinship, a way to honor the trajectories of those whose connections with their communities have been interrupted by settler-colonialism. Dancing as a repatriation methodology, we argue, carves a healing space of sensate self-representation that centers on Indigenous forms of knowing and leaves no one behind.

Keywords

Decolonizing methodologiesdramaturgymemoryrepatriationself-representationYaqui Deer Dance
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 1: Indigenous Dance Today , April 2016 , pp. 41 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Bimm, Jordan. 2011. “A Taste of Chocolate.” Now Toronto Magazine. June 2. https://nowtoronto.com/stage/a-taste-of-chocolate/. Accessed April 2, 2015.Google Scholar
Burelle, Julie. 2015. “Theatre in Contested Lands: Repatriating Indigenous Remains.” TDR/The Drama Review 59(1): 97–118.Google Scholar
Bopp, Judie. 1989. The Sacred Tree, 3rd ed.Wilmot, WI: Lotus Light.Google Scholar
Dangeli, Mique'l. 2015. “Dancing Chiax, Dancing Sovereignty: Performing Protocol in Unceded Territories.” Presented at the American Comparative Literature Association, Seattle, WA, March 26–29.Google Scholar
Durham, Jimmie, and Fisher, Jean. 1995. A Certain Lack of Coherence: Writings on Art and Cultural Politics. London: Kala Press.Google Scholar
Hopkins, D. J. 2003. “Research, Counter-text, Performance: Reconsidering the (Textual) Authority of the Dramaturg.” Theatre Topics: 1–17.Google Scholar
Indigenous Knowledge, Contemporary Performance. N.d. https://www.uoguelph.ca/sets/indigenous. Accessed April 2, 2015.Google Scholar
Mojica, Monique, and Farnell, Brenda. 2013. “Mola Dulad Aibanai (Living Mola Moving): Reclamations, Reenactments and Creating an Embodied Script.” Lecture presented at In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalisation, Bargehouse, London, October 26.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. 2007. The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Shorter, David Delgado. 2009. We Will Dance Our Truth: Yaqui History in Yoeme Performances. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 2003. The Archive and the Repertoire: Cultural Memory and Performance in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Patrick. 2006. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8(4): 387–409.Google Scholar