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Land of Stories: A Shadow Puppet Performance
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Emergent Seas presents a matinee presentation of the living history of Indian boarding schools.
The matinee begins with live Ojibwe music by Laughing Fox and Oshkii Giizhik Singers at 2 p.m., followed by a feature animated short “Extraction” by Moira Villiard and shadow puppet show “Land of Stories” with a community conversation to follow. Food and beverages are available for purchase and childcare is be available for the post-show conversation.
Please reserve tickets and inform organizers of any transportation, accessibility, and/or childcare needs at LandofStoriesCloquet.eventbrite.com.
About “Extraction”
Can we un-suicide, un-pipeline, un-disappear our dear ones? There is no word for undo but many ways to say return. “Extraction” is a short, frame-by-frame animation created by Moira Villiard, featuring poem and narration by award-winning Duckwater Shoshone tribal member Tanaya Winder, and a debut musical composition by Lucifer Josts. The poem takes viewers through a conversation between the poet and her knitting grandmother, who opens with the phrase “boarding school is where people go to die,” followed by a surreal immersion into the literal and metaphorical forms of extraction done to Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island.
About “Land of Stories”
This land we walk on is full of stories—ancient stories that arise from the land and make it whole and more recent stories that haunt the land and tear it apart. Narrated by Zhi-shay “Uncle Wolf” and Oshkinawe “Young Frank Doolittle,” Land of Stories is a landmark shadow puppet performance guiding audience members of all ages and backgrounds through a dreamlike land of stories that begins with the Anishinaabe Seven Fires Prophecy and ends with a boy receiving spiritual guidance from Migizi “Bald Eagle” and his ancestors on his long journey home from Indian boarding school. The writing by local Ojibwe authors Sharon Doolittle Shuck and Thomas D. Peacock braids together the stirring musical accompaniment of Laughing Fox and the stunning poetic shadow puppetry of Sam Zimmerman, Olli Johnson, and Alex Young. Additional design provided by Moira Villiard and Sylvia Houle.
