THE GUTHRIE THEATER PRESENTS STORIES FROM THE DRUM, AN INDIGENOUS-LED PERFORMANCE PIECE ON THE McGUIRE PROSCENIUM STAGE

(Minneapolis/St. Paul) — The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announces three performances of Stories From the Drum — a collaboration with local Native communities and nationally recognized artists Larissa FastHorse and Ty Defoe to support an Indigenous-led, Indigenous-driven and Indigenous-decolonized practice of working in community.

All performances will take place on the McGuire Proscenium Stage and are open to the public. Dates and times for this limited run include:

Saturday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, June 2 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.

General admission tickets are free and may be reserved through the Box Office at 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE (toll-free), in person or online at http://www.guthrietheater.org/drum. There is a limit of 10 tickets per household.

Stories From the Drum is born from the hearts and minds of the Native community. Created through a series of workshops developed and facilitated by FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota), Defoe (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations/Anishinaabe Nation), Marisa Carr (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) and Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota), this illuminating work features an all-Native cast from the Twin Cities. In conjunction with the Stories From the Drum performances, a pop-up market will showcase fine art by local Indigenous makers.

Pop-up market times and locations:

Saturday, June 1: 12–5 p.m. on Level One; 6–8 p.m. on Level Four

Sunday, June 2: 12–5 p.m. on Level One; 6–7 p.m. on Level Four

“Minneapolis is home to one of the largest urban populations of Indigenous people in the country. In fact, the very land on which our building sits and the waters of the Mississippi in our backyard are historically sacred lands to the Native communities of the region,” said Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj. “We feel it is our great responsibility to build meaningful connections to the elders and broader community members who hold ties to the land, and the goal of Stories From the Drum is to expand and deepen the Guthrie’s relationship with the local Indigenous community.”

In summer 2017, the Guthrie collaborated with FastHorse and Defoe of Indigenous Direction to produce Water Is Sacred — a performance that blended ceremony, music, text, dance and discussion to celebrate water and acknowledge how water has been threatened on Indigenous lands. Stories From the Drum, a three-part project that launched in September 2018, builds on this important work.

First, a series of community-centered workshops were hosted by the Division of Indian Work in December 2018, March 2019 and May 2019. Each workshop was designed to develop material for the Stories From the Drum performance by guiding participants in the creation of stories, scenes, songs and movement inspired by what the drum means to them. Second, Native audience members attended four Guthrie productions, participated in meet and greets with Guthrie production staff and took a backstage tour that illuminated different careers in the theater. The project culminates in three performances created from the workshops, also titled Stories From the Drum.

“Indigenous Direction is thrilled to be part of creating space for Indigenous joy and narratives,” said co-founders FastHorse and Defoe. “We are excited to be working again with the diverse Indigenous talent in the Twin Cities. Many organizations and artists have been doing this work here for decades, and we are honored to help bring these talents to the Guthrie audiences. We hope to create inclusivity, healing and interconnectedness as we welcome all relatives to participate, to be seen and to be heard.”

Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) and Ty Defoe (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations/Anishinaabe Nation), co-founders of Indigenous Direction, are artists and consultants from the upper Midwest who serve as leaders in the national conversation about Indigenous performance. Indigenous Direction uses cultural protocols and ways of looking at the world to guide theater, filmmaking and writing. FastHorse and Defoe have led Stories From the Drum by designing community workshops and shaping the final production. FastHorse is an award-winning playwright and choreographer whose work has been produced at Playwrights Horizons, Cornerstone Theater Company, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Children’s Theatre Company and History Theatre (upcoming). Defoe is a two-spirit/trans activist, cultural pioneer, writer and Grammy Award-winning musician. He was a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist in Residence at the Yale Institute for Music Theatre and has worked with Indigenous populations at the Alaska Native Heritage Center and Hawaiian Playwrights Initiative.

Marisa Carr (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) is a Twin Cities-based playwright, actor, singer/composer and activist. Through her artistry and work at the Division of Indian Work, she has formed complex ties with local Native community members and serves as the lead community liaison for Stories From the Drum. Her deep knowledge of the local community and Native service organizations, as well as her understanding of the Guthrie’s operational practices, offers sharp analysis of barriers to access and provides creative solutions in a community-first fashion. Her work as a theater artist has been featured at the Playwrights’ Center, The Southern Theater and Pillsbury House Theatre, and she is a founding artistic director of the local Turtle Theater Collective. Since participating in Water Is Sacred, Carr now serves as a member of the Guthrie’s Community Advisory Network.

Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota) was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and raised in Minneapolis. She is a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts, photographer and artist whose work mixes traditional Indigenous arts with contemporary aesthetics. During Stories From the Drum, Grey Eagle helped lead the community workshops and guided outreach to local Native nonprofits. Her visual art, photography and beadwork also contributes to the aesthetic development and archival of the performance. Grey Eagle has worked as a dramaturg and artistic curator for Defoe in a devising project called Nations of the Moon at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she is currently working with Winona LaDuke’s Honor the Earth to create videography and art-based projects that document Native community responses to environmental issues.

Stories From the Drum is made possible by Theatre Forward’s Advancing Strong Theatre program, the Marbrook Foundation, and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in addition to the local Indigenous elders, water protectors and people in the Twin Cities community who have been doing this work for many years.

Artwork designed by Adrienne Zimiga-January (Oglala Lakota).

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THE GUTHRIE THEATER (Joseph Haj, artistic director) was founded by Sir Tyrone Guthrie in 1963 and is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training, dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. Under Haj’s leadership, the Guthrie is guided by four core values: Artistic Excellence; Community; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and Fiscal Responsibility. The Guthrie produces a mix of classic and contemporary plays on three stages and continues to set a national standard for excellence in theatrical production and performance, serving nearly 400,000 patrons annually. In 2006, the Guthrie opened a new home, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, located on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Open to the public year-round, it houses three state-of-the-art stages, production facilities, classrooms, full-service restaurants and dramatic public lobbies. guthrietheater.org