Note: This essay was first published in Stance on Dance’s fall/winter 2022 print issue. To learn more, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

Pretend + Indian (NDN/Native) = Pretendian

Pretendian: a term used for a person who commits ethnic fraud and cultural appropriation by falsely claiming to be from an Indigenous nation of North America.

This article is intended to make Indigenous and non-indigenous people aware of an ongoing problem that has been around in many areas of US, Canadian, and Mexican societies for decades and in some cases for more than 100 years. In the dance world at large, I am unclear how long pretendians have been a problem, but it is sadly not a new problem. The Indigenous peoples who live in the countries of Canada, the US, and Mexico are not a monolith: there are more than 630 government-recognized First Nations, Inuit, and Métis tribes in Canada; in the US, there are 574 federally recognized Native tribes from 48 states and Alaska; within Mexico there are 68 distinct ethnic groups of Indigenous peoples. I have often heard the phrase “Native American culture” used as a generalized singular reference. The phrase should always be plural and tribe-specific whenever possible. Though there may be some similarities and influences among Native nations, the languages/dialects, traditions, histories, ancestral lineages, foods, spirituality/religions, etc. are tribe-specific to each nation. The terms Indigenous, Native American, First Nations, and Indio/Indigena are not tribes or nations, but are very general terms for these groups as a whole. Most individuals and tribes prefer to identify themselves using their specific people’s name.

My personal experience

I’m not interested in calling out anyone or naming names, as that has already happened outside of this article. I want to create awareness of the pretendian problem in professional dance communities, and to give tools to address if someone is falsely claiming Native heritage. This becomes a problem in the San Francisco Bay Area where I live and work and in many dance communities around the world. Opportunities are being carved out exclusively for Indigenous, Black, and other marginalized groups who have historically and systemically been discriminated against and put at a disadvantage for grant money, jobs, awards, and performance opportunities. It has been heartwarming to see so many individuals and arts organizations working towards equity for all dancers. However, while there may be promising changes happening, unfortunately there are non-indigenous artists appropriating Indigenous identities and taking advantage of these equitable intentions.

I danced for a company for more than five years, which once promoted itself as the largest Indigenous dance company in the world. It was an ensemble of dancers who came from multiple Native North American nations and Indigenous peoples from other parts of the world. The artistic director/founder had claimed an obscure paternal family lineage to the Blackfoot Nation, Algonquin Peoples, and Métis Nation. In 2018, the director was found to have zero family connection or lineage to any Native nation in Canada or the US. This person to this day also claims “Hunka Lakota” in bios and in formal introductions. To many non-Lakotas, Hunka Lakota sounds like a tribe, but is actually not. The Hunka ceremony is a Lakota adoption custom dating back to ancient times that joins individuals and families into deep kinship ties. This ceremony has nothing to do with tribal enrollment or legal adoption.

Creating strong kinship ties is a common practice for many cultures. I was ceremonially adopted by my Kookum (grandmother) Carol of the Michel Band First Nation. By no means, does my kinship with Carol mean that I am now a part of the Michel First Nation. I cannot claim them as my people, and they do not claim me. You must be a legitimate descendant of the Michel Band with proof in order to enroll in their nation. Another example from my own life is my Korean “godfamily,” the Yu family. Our families have been very close since decades before I was born. The Yus immigrated from Korea around the time my dad came to the US from Chiapas, Mexico. The Christian-English term “godfamily” is used among us because we don’t have a strong enough term to describe the history and connection our families share with each other. We freely have cultural exchanges between us; our parents even went into business together. I am very familiar with Korean culture because of their influence in my life. But just like with Carol and her nation, my family connection to the Yus does not make me Korean. Exploiting those connections and presenting yourself as if you are a part of a tribe that’s not your own for the purpose of financial gain is a deception. It preys on people’s naiveté and ignorance of Native nations, thereby taking from the limited and exclusive opportunities available for Native artists.

Another problem arises when a pretendian dresses in native patterns or regalia, wears Native-looking jewelry, and speaks in “we” statements. Our respective cultures are not a costume, fashion accessory, or a new age way to get in touch with the earth, but are rooted in family lineages, specific regions of land, and personal lived experience within our cultures. A pretendian further adds to Native erasure when they start to speak on behalf of Indigenous people they don’t belong to and of the lived experience they never had. These include using “we” statements or overgeneralized terminology such as global-Indigenous or pan-Indigenous; only using ‘Indigenous’ to self-identify instead of a specific tribe; or referencing a specific nation’s cultural teachings to gain credibility as if all other Native nations possess the same teachings. I recently had a pretendian try to volunteer for an event I was helping to produce. He talked for an hour and a half about how he was Native and kept referencing “the Great Law of Peace” as if I should know it. My family’s people have had their own laws since time immemorial. I decided to Google this person’s name with “pretendian” after it. Official statements from every tribe that this person has ever claimed to be enrolled in came up in the search. Each of the tribes stated that he had never been enrolled and they don’t know who he is.

Another example of a pretendian tactic is the descendant claim. Many people claim to have a great-grandparent four to seven generations ago that was a Native princess, yet they have never researched their family’s story, have zero cultural connection to the alleged ancestor’s tribe, and their ancestors have never even lived in that tribe’s territory. One of my own ancestors, who lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the 1600s, is documented as being from the Tigua Tribe and was a servant in a Spanish household. She eventually was impregnated and married off to the head of that family. This, like the other examples, in no way makes me from the Tigua Tribe. Every ancestor succeeding her in my lineage never had children with another Tigua person. This one Tigua ancestor does not qualify me for tribal enrollment, nor would a DNA test prove anything. It would be highly inappropriate of me to claim that I’m from this tribe, or to even say that I’m a Tigua descendant. I have a Tigua ancestor from the 1600s. Full stop.

A pretendian enacting these behaviors creates distrust between individuals, tribes, and Native communities. When a Native person innocently co-signs or welcomes a pretendian to a specific group or tribal community, trust can be broken when the truth comes to the surface. Hurt, fear, doubt, and anger are some of the feelings that come up for people. Pretendians can ultimately damage relationships within communities. Many Indigenous cultures value long and deep relationships, respecting the history created by two or more parties. Pretendians can cause setbacks in fostering these valued relationships, not to mention how generational trauma can be triggered by their actions directly and indirectly for so many Natives.

Who claims you?

In my experience, it is a very common practice for Indigenous people of North America to inquire and share about their respective tribal communities. It’s common to ask someone upon meeting them the following questions:

What tribe/nation are you from?

What is the name of your people in your language?

What community are you and your family from?

Who claims you?

Who is your family/clan?

Each individual may answer differently according to their culture and tradition. Usually, people are very proud to share where they come from. In my experience, pretendians tend to get upset by these questions. They will deflect from getting too specific, and their tribal claims will change dramatically over time. Some pretendians will accuse other non-Native people of violence or accuse actual Natives of lateral violence for even asking these simple questions. I am not suggesting nor recommending a non-Native person aggressively interrogate someone and ask to show a tribal ID; that would be missing the point. If you are going to ask an Indigenous person these questions, be ready to offer information where your family is from. Example: I’m mixed European, Scandinavian/Irish/British, and my family immigrated to the US about four generations ago.

In my lifetime, I have been privileged to have met so many wonderful Indigenous people from all over the continent, but there are still many nations I have not yet heard of. When I don’t know about someone’s people, if it’s appropriate, I will ask if they are willing to share about their people, and I always reciprocate. I find this to be a wonderful way to connect with another Indigenous person and learn about them through their perspectives. When the situation isn’t appropriate to ask, I turn to the internet and tribal websites. I find this to be a useful tool to help determine if a person is a pretendian or not, like in the case of someone claiming to be Cherokee. There are more than 200 fake Cherokee tribes in the US and only three historic federally recognized Cherokee tribes. Most historic Native nations in the US and Canada have websites. These websites will have useful information to help you determine if a tribe has government recognition and/or has historic legitimacy as a Native/First Nations community. Each nation’s government has its own sovereignty over who and how it claims tribal members. It is not up to an individual to self-identify as a tribal citizen of a particular nation.

For Indigenous people of Mexico, it sometimes can be a little harder to investigate a person’s claim. Mexican Indigenous peoples have maintained their ethnic and cultural identities, languages/dialects, tribal affiliations, are still living in their historic communities on their land, etc. These Indigenous tribes don’t have a system of tribal enrollment because the government of Mexico does not give federal recognition like the US and Canadian governments have for northern tribes. There are a lot of Mexicans who claim Indigenous ancestry. Some of those Mexicans are descendants of detribalized people whose family has lost their Indigenous connection generations ago. So asking “What community are you and your family from?” is a very important question. This will help determine the difference between someone having detribalized ancestors versus having living family members from Indigenous communities. The multitude of “pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican” dance groups who perform in fairs and local community events in the US and at tourist destinations in Mexico are not the Indigenous communities I am referring to. A few examples of actual Indigenous peoples are the Tzotzil of Chiapas, the Wixarika of Jalisco, and the Yoeme of Sonora; all three of these tribes can get very specific about where they come from and who their families are. Again, asking the above questions will yield specific answers of where that person comes from, the name of their people, the region and town their family lives in, and a living connection to their culture.

A sad reality is that a pretendian can still lie about their answers to these simple questions. This behavior is very problematic when the results are that this person gets awarded grant funding, is given positions in academia, and is invited to be a featured artist. When the standards and framework of Indigenous contemporary dance are shaped by the works of pretendians, it changes a non-Indigenous organization’s perspective on what Indigenous contemporary art is and can be. Actual Natives can then be overlooked or seen as “not Indigenous enough” for European-American eyes. When non-Indigenous choreographers receive funding that is intended for Indigenous choreographers, it aids in disenfranchising Native artists. Indigenous artists should be able to set their own standards for their work without having to play into falsely accepted tropes for funding.

I hope those of us working towards equity for all dancers will stay vigilant when it comes to the pretendian problem. To non-Indigenous people, it will be messy, painful, and scary, but with practice you can learn how to handle it with grace. It is okay to ask these simple questions. For Indigenous artists, keep making beautiful works of art for yourself and your people. Current and future generations of your tribe will find inspiration from you and your work. No matter what space you occupy, stay strong in your culture and be proud of where you come from.

Tzeltal decoration mask (non-ceremonial) from Chiapas of Yum Kaax, the Mayan diety of corn and protector of plants and animals

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Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert (she/her) is a Two-Spirit performance artist of Tzotzil of Simojovel, Yaqui of Sonora, and Raramuri of Chihuahua heritage. As a professional dancer, drag performer/event host, and entrepreneur, Snowflake produces LGBTQ+ events as platforms for political, social, and cultural activism. Currently, she’s co-producing Seeds and Sequins: a queer dance project of collaborative work, and is a dance collaborator of The TRY Project. Snowflake is also an Isadora Duncan Awards committee member and is on the organizing committee for the Queering Dance Festival.

Note: This essay was first published in Stance on Dance’s fall/winter 2022 print issue. To learn more, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

The post Pretendians in Dance appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Cherie Hill, Hope Mohr, and Karla Quintero are the co-directors of The Bridge Project, a Bay Area based project that creates and supports equity driven live-art that builds community and centers artists as agents of change. Here, they talk about their programming and their distributed leadership model. Additionally, Hope recently authored the book Shifting Cultural Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance in commemoration of The Bridge Project’s 10th anniversary. She shares more about how and why she wrote the book, as well as what she hopes readers glean.

Left: Cherie Hill, photo by Robbie Sweeny, top right: Hope Mohr, photo courtesy the artist, bottom right: Karla Quintero, photo by Robbie Sweeny

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Hope, can you briefly tell me about yourself so readers can get a sense of where you’re coming from and how The Bridge Project got started?

Hope Mohr: I am a white choreographer and activist, and I was a professional dancer for a long time. I danced for about 10 years in New York City, and I moved back to the Bay Area where I’m from in 2006. I started Hope Mohr Dance because I was interested in finding my voice as a choreographer after being a dancer for other people for a very long time.

In 2010, I started The Bridge Project. It started as a feminist platform for shared dance programming, but it has evolved iteratively over time in response to changing social and political contexts, and has become equity focused and equity driven, and now very much has an equity and anti-racism commitment at the heart of its programming. Another notable evolution is that over the past year and a half, it has evolved into a model of distributed leadership.

Cherie and Karla, can you each share a little about yourselves and your entry into The Bridge Project?

Karla Quintero: I’m from New York City originally. I moved to the Bay Area in 2012. I’m a dancer and performing artist. I don’t really call myself a choreographer, but I collaborate with friends on projects that use dance as a tool for what we want to say. I work a lot with improvisation.

I also co-direct The Bridge Project. A lot of my work around community-building and bringing about change and more equity in the dance world happens within that framework. My first interaction with The Bridge Project was as a dancer in 2016. I performed Trisha Brown repertoire as part of a program that featured 10 multidisciplinary artists responding to and interrogating the work of Trisha Brown, in particular the piece Locus.

In 2017, after some conversations with Hope where I shared my background working in transportation advocacy and in nonprofits in New York, she asked if I wanted to join and work with Hope Mohr Dance. That’s when I began working with the organization in an administrative capacity. In 2020, we shifted to a model of distributed leadership. Even though I had weighed in on programs before, this was the first time I co-curated programming, and that has continued into today.

Cherie Hill: I moved to the Bay Area in 2003 to go to UC Berkeley, where I got my BA in Dance and Performance Studies and African American Studies. While I was there, I had the opportunity to work with some Bay Area choreographers like Joe Goode and Kathleen Hermesdorf. I toured with the Bay Area Repertory Dance Company, and I took Afro-Haitian dance at Laney College. After graduating, I worked in the area as a dance teaching artist, and eventually left to pursue an MFA at the University of Colorado. I started creating and producing my own works as a choreographer, and I started my small dance company, Cherie Hill IrieDance.

In 2012, I returned to the Bay to choreograph and work in dance education and community. I taught in Oakland Unified School District. I taught creative dance to moms and children in rehabilitation centers. I also taught at the Oakland and Berkeley Libraries. I did this for about eight years.

I applied to be the Community Engagement Residency coordinator for Hope Mohr Dance about two years ago. I came into The Bridge Project this way. The Community Engagement Residency is a big part of The Bridge Project where we have resident artists who are working on a project that directly impacts the community through dance.

Cherie Hill, photo by Robbie Sweeny

In 2020, Hope asked Karla and me to join her as co-directors to start this distributed leadership model. And so I joined on as a co-director and also became a curator of The Bridge Project. I was excited about this because I hadn’t thought of myself as a curator and wanted to learn more. I was definitely looking forward to this focus of more cultural and racial equity. The first project I worked on with Hope and Karla was Power Shift, which was a dance festival we did around improvisation and bringing Black, Latinx, Asian, queer, and social justice activists into our programming to learn their thoughts and their experience around improvisation.

How is The Bridge Project organized with regards to its equity driven model of distributed leadership?

Karla: Right now, the way it’s organized is there are three co-directors and we all work part-time. We’re the administrative staff of the organization. When we have a program, we share the implementation duties. We discuss curatorial decisions and make them collectively. Anyone can suggest an idea for a program or an artist we want to work or partner with. Once that happens the other staff work to support that person in realizing that vision.

Because of the way we were structured before where Hope was the founder and I was the administrative manager, I took on a lot of the grant writing and marketing work. That division of labor has stuck. But if someone new were to come in, that could be potentially reinvented and we’d have a new distribution of working together.

Cherie: Another way I see equity showing up in The Bridge Project is through our curatorial efforts. Right now, we’re doing an anti-racism and dance series, and it seems like it’s a nice balance between all our interests as curators and also the community feedback around people’s interests or questions.

For example, I received some community feedback around anti-racism equity workshops in general tending to cater more toward white people and the work they need to do, the questions they have, or the fragility that surrounds them. Some of our artists who are BIPOC shared that they do not feel like these workshops are for them even though they are showing up. I’ve felt that way myself sometimes at equity workshops. So with this series we were thinking about what BIPOC folks need in this work as well as white folks. The program is an example of that. We have events for different people who are at different stages in this work. That’s an example of how we’re thinking about equity and working together day-by-day to show programming that reflects that.

What is the relationship between Hope Mohr Dance and The Bridge Project?

Hope: Hope Mohr Dance holds the 501c3 status, so legally it’s the container for The Bridge Project, but The Bridge Project has really become the core program of the organization.

In terms of how we’ve been trying to implement equity, we’ve made a few structural moves that have been really important, including moving to pay equity. All three of us are paid the same rate on an hourly basis. We also started paying dancers as employees at the same rate we pay ourselves. Those moves felt really important in terms of walking the equity talk.

Centering artists’ voices is also essential to our model of distributed leadership. It’s not just about sharing power as a staff, but also about sharing power with artists in the community. Our Community Engagement Residency is another big part of that commitment. We’re also about to launch an Artist Curatorial Council, which will be a paid group of artists who will be given 30 percent of The Bridge Project’s budget to implement their curatorial visions. Similarly, our board is 100 percent working artists.

Hope Mohr, photo courtesy the artist

Hope, you recently authored a book, Shifting Cultural Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance. Can you share what the impetus was for the book and your experience writing it?

Hope: Christy Bolingbroke at the National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron approached me in 2018 to write a book commemorating the 10th anniversary of The Bridge Project, which was in 2020. This is the first book in their book series.

I didn’t originally know what format it would take. I thought it would be an annotated archive. Out of the work of archiving the project’s history, the content started organizing itself into case studies of different programs, relationships with artists, and lessons I have learned. Out of that, a narrative emerged about the importance of decentering whiteness and implementing new models of relationship in dance.

What do you hope readers take away?

Hope: I hope readers take away that the time is now for new models in dance that are based in relationship instead of transaction. The time is now for new models based in equity. There’s so much need in the field for change. Change is so possible.

I try to emphasize in the book that making mistakes is a big part of the work. By coming forward and saying, “I made all these mistakes and this is what I learned,” I hope people will be encouraged to do the same kind of work.

What impact have you seen from The Bridge Project?

Karla: It’s hard to talk about the impact of the program in the field because I’m more intimately connected with the ways it has impacted me or other artists we partner with. I think that for the time I’ve been involved, we’ve evolved the way we partner with artists. We focus on growing our understanding of what it means to meaningfully support artists. Our partnerships with artists have a structure at the outset, like a residency or a performance opportunity, but that structure is emerging and flexible. We’re interested in developing a relationship that allows us to meet the artist where they are in their artistic trajectory. If what they need is to be in conversation with someone with more experience, whether that’s us or someone we connect them with, we facilitate that. Or maybe they just need access to resources and funding, and we’ll facilitate that.

For me, the relationships and trust we’re building with artists is the impact. A lot of artists of color haven’t had great experiences working with institutions. Many of them feel that when they are invited into an institution, it’s to check a box. The institution is not really interested in getting to know them as artists or being responsive to their work. I hope one impact of the program is that a nonprofit can have relationships with artists that are not paternalistic or transactional, and where both parties are learning, growing, and evolving.

Karla Quintero, photo by Stephen Texeira

Cherie: In the past year and a half, in the field in general I’ve seen a change. People are speaking out more publicly, especially during the pandemic. I have deeply heard these cries about harm and wanting change. In my experience, Hope Mohr Dance has been called upon as an ally to artists to help them think through some of these situations. We’ve been on calls around how an organization can be restructured to be more socially or racially just. We’ve been asked to help when there’s been artists in a community in conflict who are trying to work something out and harm has been accused. Hope Mohr Dance is in the puddle, so to speak, with some of these issues.

We are moving with a field that wants to shift toward being more equitable. There are certain stakeholders who see us as a resource or see us as an ally. That’s been really cool for me to witness for the past year and a half.

Hope: I don’t know if I can speak to the impact of the program. I do feel like it has built relationships between artists, and I think in a way there is nothing more important. I’ve seen relationships last between artists who have been brought together by different Bridge Project programs. That is super rewarding. I know that word “community” is elusive, but it does come from artist-to-artist relationships.

As we all know, the field has undergone a reckoning over the past year. I’ll be very curious to see how much of those lessons stay as people rush back into production mode. I hope we can continue to hold a space for thoughtful approaches to building relationships among artists.

What’s next for The Bridge Project? Is there an upcoming project or focus you want to share more about?

Karla: I am co-curating an online bilingual media series with David Herrera and Mario Ismael Espinoza called Danzacuentos: Voz, Cuerpo y Raíces. It features five different artists of Latin American and Indigenous heritage. I’ve always been curious about media representation of dance artists, and particularly Latin American and Indigenous dance artists. It feels like their narratives are limited to stories of their struggles, or of triumph by way of being accepted into or by an elite institution. A lot of model minority narratives are tied with getting a job in a company, for example. As a series co-curator, I wanted to see if we could profile artists in a way that they felt like they were driving their own narrative and were able to share what they wanted about their work, lives, process, politics, identities, and heritage, and how these all intersect. I wanted to create a space where artists could feel safe to share and where we could invite people to listen without preconceived notions or biases. It’s the first time we’re co-curating something like this and it’s exciting; we’re learning a lot about how you make change in the media happen. The series website, danzacuentos.org, will include interviews with each of the artists. And then each of the artists contributed different artifacts from their creative processes: images, writing, video, playlists. We’re having a live event where people can ask the artists questions on Zoom on September 17th at 5pm Pacific.

Danzacuentos artists:
Row 1: Snowflake Calvert, Cinthia Pérez Navarro, Lyvan Verdecia
Row 2: Dulce Escobedo, Marianna Escobedo
Row 3: Co-curators Mario Ismael Espinoza, David Herrera, Karla Quintero

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To learn more about The Bridge Project, visit www.bridgeproject.art.

To order Hope’s book, Shifting Culture Power: Case Studies and Questions in Performance, visit www.nccakron.org/books.

The post Shifting Toward Models of Equity appeared first on Stance on Dance.

BY SNOWFLAKE CALVERT (DANIEL ARIZMENDI)

My dream as an aspiring teenage dancer was about being hired into a ballet company and working my way up the ranks. I wanted to work professionally with as many companies and choreographers as I could and be taught by top teachers from around the world. My hope was to perform as much as possible in leading ballet roles while exploring multiple dance styles. Owning my own dance studio to create a platform for other dancers was also a desire of mine for many years. The ambitions I had drove me to pursue my dreams sometimes to exhaustion. Due to misinformation, I thought that dancers couldn’t find work past the age of 35; as a result, I’m humbled to say I was able to do all those things by the time I was 30. So then, I wondered: what does “making it” look like now? Is it a series of checkpoints? What does “making it” look like for a decolonizing Indigenous Two-Spirit in the United States?

I am an Indigenous Two-Spirit (Yaqui and Mayan) American born in Rumsen Ohlone territory in Salinas, California. My Mayan father was born and raised in Chiapas, Mexico in the Lacandon Jungle. My father’s family immigrated to the US when my dad was 15 years old, barefoot and wearing American clothing they found in a dumpster. Without a formal western education, my family had few options but to work in produce fields and canneries. They made pennies working for companies that to this day still exploit immigrant labor. After three years of two parents and nine children living out of a car, they finally could afford not to be homeless. My father discovered his passion for martial arts, and it became a vehicle for my family to become self-sufficient.

My mother, of Yaqui and Raramuri descent, was born into extreme poverty because Native Americans had few work options outside of the reservation. Like many Yaquis, my grandpa was able to find consistent work building railroad tracks. My grandmother was a housewife and also worked in the orchards. During my mom’s childhood, they lived in a shack with dirt floors and holes in the roof. As adults, my parents overworked themselves to become entrepreneurs and sustain day jobs while raising a family. Out of all our relatives, they were the lucky ones who pulled themselves out of poverty. When I made the decision to dance professionally as a teenager, my family had a lot of doubt and concern. I was the only dancer in the family at that time. No one really understood what being a dancer in America could be. I worked hard to prove to them that my dream was something worth investing in. I’m proud to say that I “made it” by showing them the possibilities and opportunities that dance can bring to people.

Photo by Lydia Daniller

To be an American artist and have a stable income is a privilege that I never take for granted. This is a “making it” checkpoint for me. I’ve been able to travel the world, meet some of the most amazing people, teach at the university level, and use my art to help strengthen LGBTQ+ communities.  And now my family has other dancers who are pursuing their own dreams in the dance world.

Recently, I’ve learned more about my people’s history as survivors of systematic genocide. The first people who the Spaniards murdered among my ancestors were the artists, dancers, singers, musicians, writers, and healers. Each one of those occupations was complementary to each other, as they were integral parts to Mayan culture and spirituality. These sacred societal roles held offices of great influence and passed down our history for thousands of years.

Indigenous performance isn’t just for entertainment. It is a sacred ritual ceremony to give those in attendance time to receive visual medicine. People learned history, life lessons, and prayer through performances engaged in ceremony. Artists carried the responsibility of continuing our living history as my people advanced in science, astronomy, and math. My ancestors’ artistry shattered the illusions of the Spanish colonial mindset, and they were murdered for it.

Fast forward 518 years to the present day: my people and I have survived. We didn’t suddenly disappear for some unknown reason like many have said. The Maya peoples are still living on our ancestral lands, and have an autonomous region in Chiapas. We continue to speak our unique language with over 30 dialects, and many are still living in the traditional way of our ancient culture. We survived a Spanish genocide that lasted hundreds of years. While there was so much that was taken from us over the centuries, we are still fighting hard against colonialism and erasure culture. My people never stopped dancing.

I want to use my art to contribute to the healing, revitalization, and cultural restoration of my tribes and peoples. I push myself to be radical in decolonizing my body in the hope that future generations of Indigenous dancers will have more visibility. My hope is also for non-indigenous people who have lost their ancestral connection and culture to benefit from this medicine. I use my platform to help people in various ways: free healing clinics, Indigenous talking circles and panels, free food events, advancing other artists, making space for QTPOC/QPOC voices to be heard, and positive dialogue for strengthening Black and Native relations in the US.

As a classically trained ballet dancer, the ability to push the boundaries of European dance theatre while exploring Indigenous forms of ritual performance has had a profound impact on me. I used to begin teaching choreography as quickly as I could in order to have a finished product within an allotted time frame. There was little room to interact with the dancers beyond relaying information about the dance piece. Now, with a stronger Indigenous mindset, I see the process of creating art as an opportunity to honor each individual’s ancestral bloodline, seeing each dancer as a part of their family’s legacy. This leaves room for ancestral, personal, and collective culture to be intentionally free flowing. When I can facilitate this self-explorative environment, I feel I reach another “making it” checkpoint. It is healing to be seen and heard on a cultural level. True magic is in the creation process, and the performance allows audience members to participate in the culmination of that collective collaboration.

My next “making it” checkpoint is the goal of contributing to my tribes and cultures in hopes of creating better visibility and content for future generations of Yaqui and Mayan Two-Spirit people. My dream is for seven generations in the future to benefit from learning from my mistakes and successes. I want to be one of many whose content gets archived for future Two-Spirits to build from. There aren’t a lot of records of Two-Spirit people from previous generations due to colonial homophobia, so creating content for future generations is very important to me. If I’m going to leave one message for every future Two-Spirit, it should read:

“Auntie Snowflake loves you and is thinking of you. You and your artistry are the default culture here on Turtle Island. It’s colonialism that’s out of context, not you. [Lios emchin aniabo.] Learn to heal from the bad experiences and be proud of the good times. Regardless of money, an audience, or a proper stage, continue to dance for yourself. Give yourself permission to enjoy the journey of getting to your career checkpoints, and always dance your truth.”

Photo by Ben Arizmendi-Calvert

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Snowflake Calvert (Daniel Arizmendi) is a Two-Spirit artist of Yaqui and Tzotzil Mayan heritage, who serves as the President of QUIL (Queers United for Intersectional Liberation). She produces queer events throughout California and Oregon that allow her to curate a vehicle for political, social, and cultural activism through the artistry of her radical queerness. In addition, she is a professional dancer, teacher and entrepreneur. She was a member of The Haus of Towers, has worked with the BAAITS Powwow committee, teaches decolonization through movement workshops, is the former owner/director of The Dance Zone Studio, and hosts and participates in two-spirit talking circles.

Follow Snowflake on Instagram @arizmendi or on Facebook by searching for Snowflake Calvert.

The post “Making It” As An Indigenous Two-Spirit Dancer appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Meet our director and editor:

Emmaly Wiederholt is a dance artist and arts journalist based in Albuquerque, NM. She founded Stance on Dance in 2012. Emmaly earned her MA in Arts Journalism from the University of Southern California and her BFA in Ballet and BS in Political Science from the University of Utah. She further trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and performed extensively around the Bay Area. Her first book, Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond, was published in 2017, and her second book, Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, was published in 2022. Emmaly is also a master DanceAbility instructor and facilitates movement groups at the UNM Hospital adult psychiatric ward, as well as is a founding member of the dance advocacy nonprofit ABQ Dance Connect. She continues to perform throughout the Southwest.

Photo by Allen Winston

Our contributors have included:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert, a performance artist and organizer in the Bay Area.

Gregory Bartning, a photographer in Portland, OR.

Liz Duran Boubion, the director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers in the Bay Area.

Liz Brent-Maldonado, an artist, writer, educator, and producer in San Francisco, CA.

Michelle Chaviano, a ballet dancer with Ballet North Texas.

Bradford Chin, a disabled dance artist and accessibility consultant in Chicago, IL, and San Francisco, CA.

Shebana Coelho, a writer and performer currently studying flamenco in Spain.

breana connor, an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator + healer in Albuquerque, NM.

Lauren Coons, an interdisciplinary artist, performer, healer and educator in Albuquerque, NM.

Julia Cost, a painter, textile designer, sewist, and dancer in Maui, HI.

Sophia Diehl, a dancer in New York City.

Bonnie Eissner, a writer in New York City.

Katie Flashner, a.k.a. The Girl with the Tree Tattoo, a World Champion ballroom dancer and author in ME.

Micaela Gardner, a dancer and choreographer in Baja, Mexico.

Sarah Groth, an interdisciplinary artist from Albuquerque, NM.

Cherie Hill, a dance educator and choreographer based in the Bay Area.

Lorie House, a dancer, choreographer, and lawyer in NM.

Silva Laukkanen, a dance educator and disability advocate in Austin, TX.

Mary Elizabeth Lenahan, the director of Dance Express in Fort Collins, CO.

Shannon Leypoldt, a dance artist, teacher, and sports massage therapist in Berlin.

Erin Malley, a dance artist and tango teacher based in West Michigan.

Julianna Massa, a dance artist in Albuquerque, NM.

Aiano Nakagawa, a dance artist, educator, facilitator, writer, and event producer in the Bay Area.

Jessie Nowak, a dance artist and filmmaker in Portland, OR.

Kevin O’Connor, a multidisciplinary artist in London, Ontario, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bhumi B Patel, an artist/activist based in the Bay Area.

Stephanie Potreck, a sports nutritionist and health advocate who currently resides in Germany.

Jill Randall, artistic director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA.

Kathryn Roszak, a choreographer, filmmaker, educator, and activist in the Bay Area.

Donna Schoenherr, director of Ballet4Life and Move into Wellbeing in London, UK.

Maggie Stack, a dancer and teacher in Reno, NV.

Camille Taft, a CO front range-based mover and visual artist.

Mary Trunk, a filmmaker, choreographer, and multimedia artist in Altadena, CA.

Diana Turner-Forte, a teaching artist, healing arts coach, and writer in NC.

Ana Vrbaski, a body music practitioner in Serbia.

Nikhita Winkler, a dancer, choreographer, and teacher from Namibia who currently resides in Spain.

Erica Pisarchuk Wilson, a dance artist, visual artist and poet in Albuquerque, NM.

Rebecca Zeh, an interdisciplinary artist in Sarasota Springs, NY.

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Our board:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert

Cathy Intemann

Alana Isiguen

Courtney King

Malinda LaVelle

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