Published Article | Connecting community to the land: Earth Day on 52nd Street centers Lenape practices and stories /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

It’s wonderful to acknowledge that we Indigenous people are here, we’re still here, and that we honor our Mother Earth.

– Tchin, Blackfeet & Narragansett Storyteller & Educator.

Our performance at Painted Bride was written about in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Sabrina Iglesias, “Connecting community to the land: Earth Day on 52nd Street centers Lenape practices and stories.”

Our work was performed alongside several other events in the area that day.

This project grew out of decolonizing work [and] thinking about centering Indigenous and Black histories in our city.

The performance is a healing ritual with the land.

– Esther Baker-Tarpaga

FRFF Grantee | The Studio for Creative Inquiry /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

In February 2023 we received generous support from the Frank-Ratchye Further Fund (FRFF): an endowment to encourage the creation of innovative artworks by the faculty, students and staff of Carnegie Mellon University. With this fund, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry seeks to develop a cache of groundbreaking projects created at CMU — works that can be described as “thinking at the edges” of the intersection of disciplines. Since the fund’s inception in 2012, the STUDIO has funded more than 400 projects by CMU faculty, staff, and students.

This funding will support our upcoming travel and exhibition "LA VILLE EN MOUV'MENT | Art in the Street" debuting in Dakar, Senegal in June 2023.

Performance Review | Constructing Memorials in Bodies, Site and Sounds /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

WE WILL NOT
WE WILL NOT
WE WILL NOT BE CONTROLLED

I AM SOVEREIGN IN MY BODY
I AM SOVEREIGN IN MY SOUL

This incantation, sung together by artists and audience, began Call her by her name: Lenape Sippu (translated as “the river of the Lenape people”), a work-in-progress by Propelled Animals. The date was June 24, 2022, the day when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

We decided an outdoor performance by the river was a potential balm for an otherwise devastating day.

We Will Not Be Controlled - YouTube. Written by The Bengsons and posted on June 24, 2022. Many others have posted themselves singing it, including Adrienne Maree Brown, who inspired the addition of the incantation on the evening of this performance.

USArtists International Grant Awardee 2022 /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

We are honored to receive a USArtists International Grant through the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation to support our participation in the “La Ville En Mouv’ment” Festival in Dakar, Senegal in June 2023.

Mid Atlantic Arts has announced grants totaling $381,510 to 29 solo performing artists and ensembles in support of the second round of USArtists International (USAI). The artists represent 10 states and will travel to 35 different festivals and arts markets around the globe. The grantee pool includes the first engagement in Cabo Verde and the first USAI artist from Puerto Rico.

Published Article | University of California Press /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

Read our article DIS/UNITY to learn about how our collective embeds innovative and provocative art in unconventional spaces and how we are committed to creating work that interrogates, challenges, and attempts to dismantle the systemic “isms” of oppression. Our work is centered on art as social action and ritual as performance and we root our work in sound. From collage and remixed news clips, hip-hop, gospel, rap, and Indigenous R&B tracks to recordings of bird calls, wind, and rain, sound fuels their immersive work—as an invitation and a provocation.

SWITCH SIGNAL Film Premiere /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

“In our film, SWITCH SIGNAL, we pay respect to the city of Pittsburgh, by heeding Mister Roger’s call to slow down and direct our attention.”
— Raquel Monroe

Photography by Beth Barbis

National Performance Network (NPN) Documentation & Storytelling Fund Awardee /  by Heidi Wiren Kebe

We are Summer 2021 Documentation and Storytelling Fund recipients!

The National Performance Network (NPN) awarded $57,000 and leveraging an additional $154,000 to nineteen Documentation & Storytelling projects. NPN’s Documentation & Storytelling Fund aims to create pathways for artists’ career advancement and to support their ability to document, promote, and share their work, ideas, and selves.

Through these projects, artists will consider the intersection of pandemic and protest; celebrate the contributions of Black women and gender-nonconforming artists to the fields of experimental dance and avant-garde art. One project will compile a show book of musical notation and storytelling that celebrates Native peoples and culture, another aims to provide collaborators with promotional and submission materials that show their practice. Many incorporate lessons learned during the pandemic, translating works to film or hybrid forms to complement their in-person versions or building an archive with which collaborators can reflect on their practice in these changing times.

The NPN Documentation & Storytelling Fund is made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.