A Mammoth Showcase

an Interdisciplinary Gathering of Native Artists

This event is free and open to the public.

Pictured: Miss Chief Rocka – Photo Credit: Candice Ward

The Indigenous Community Art Showcase is an evening celebrating the work of artists and creators including:  

• DC-based intertribal Native American Northern drum group, Uptown Singerz, who will be performing Native American powwow drumming that includes both traditional and intertribal songs. They will be accompanied by Miss Chief Rocka, performing a traditional Native Shawl Dance and Hoop Dance.
• A conversation with Rose Powhatan, a local Pamunkey mixed-media artist whose work spans written pieces and visual art.  
• A livestream conversation with Anthony Hudson, the Portland-based artist, writer and sometimes better known as Portland’s premiere drag clown Carla Rossi. Two of Hudson’s digital performances will be displayed in the lobby, including Lamp Back, commissioned by and installed permanently at Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Martyr, or: Your Own Prairie Bonnet Jesus. Both video installations see Rossi explore themes around injustice and marginalization of Native communities. A third video, When It Was Hers, showcases a personal poem by Hudson.
• A reading of ADY by Rhiana Yazzie who will be joined by Regina Victor to present her two-person play that explores the collision of Navajo life and sexuality in this play about real-life muse, Ady Fidelin, a Caribbean dancer and only Black woman living in amongst the artists of the surrealist movement in France. Directed by Angelisa Gillyard.
  

BIOS 

Uptown Singerz advances the music of Native American powwow drumming steeped in traditional song through its intertribal repertoire while engaging new songs and voices from the powwow drum genre. The Uptown Singerz are a DC-based intertribal Native American Northern drum group that performs powwow, ceremonial, honor and in some cases political songs. The group is comprised of male and female singers as well as several dancers, each of whom represents different tribal nations from all over Indian country. Each member of our drum group resides in DC or the surrounding area and brings their bold powwow style of singing and dance to share the Native American spirit and culture.  

Rhiana Yazzie is a 2021 Lanford Wilson and 2020 Steinberg award winning, playwright, director, a filmmaker, and the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection between Twin Cities theaters and the Native community. She is a 2018 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow and was recognized with a 2017 Sally Ordway Award for Vision and has been a Playwrights’ Center fellow multiple times and Core Member. Her debut film A WINTER LOVE is in festivals this year.  Rhiana is Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii bashishchiin dóó Táchii’nii dashinalí), and is a writer on season two of AMC’s top rated series, Dark Winds, which takes place on the Navajo reservation  

Anthony Hudson (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Siletz) is an artist and writer sometimes better known as Portland’s premiere drag clown CARLA ROSSI. Together they host and program Queer Horror—the only LGBTQ horror film and performance series in the country—at the historic Hollywood Theatre. Anthony’s performances have been featured at the New York Theatre Workshop, La Mama, PICA’s TBA Festival, Portland and Seattle Art Museums, Portland Center Stage, and have toured internationally. Find out more at TheCarlaRossi.com.  

Miss Chief Rocka Angela Miracle Gladue aka Lunacee, is a nehiyaw (Cree)/Greek from the Treaty 6 Territory of amiskwaciy-wâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) and is a proud member of Frog Lake First Nation. At age 6 she began cultural dancing through a Metis and Powwow dance program at her school – Prince Charles Elementary and performed regularly throughout Western Canada with the Red River Wheelers and her School’s Powwow Performing Group. Her background in Hip-Hop dance – as a B-girl, began in 2003 through the influence, mentorship and collaboration of an Indigenous Hip-Hop performance group known as The Red Power Squad. She is also a member of The Fly Girlz Dance Crew who have trained with some of the originators, innovators, and pioneers of Hip-Hop Culture. Angela has been invited to perform, speak, teach and judge in countless countries throughout the world and has been touring as one of the lead dancers for The Halluci-Nation (Formally A Tribe Called Red) since 2016. She has also opened up for major recording artists such as TLC, Sean Paul, Lil’Kim, Maestro, Grandmaster Flash and Busta Rhymes to name a few.  

Rose Powhatan (Pamunkey/Tauxenent) is a Native American artist, historian and cultural activist. She is descended from leaders of the historic Powhatan Paramountcy, in “Attan Akamik” (Our Fertile Country) which extends from Virginia to Washington, DC. Her DMV ancestors were the first Indigenous Eastern Woodlands people to encounter Spanish and English Europeans in the 1500’s and 1600’s. She is a Fulbright and Cafritz award fellow whose artwork has been exhibited locally, nationally and internationally in venues that include galleries, museums and US embassies. Powhatan and her husband Michael Auld (Taino) are cofounders of the Powhatan Museum, an intertribal source of information and outreach services. The museum’s website address is powhatanmuseum.com. She is also a member of the Kennedy Center’s Community Advisory Board and a former inaugural member of its Culture Caucus of leaders in the arts.

Regina Victor (they/them/Pharaoh) is an actor, Cultural Designer and Critic, dramaturg, and director. Their projects lie at the intersection of queer joy, Afro-Pessimism, and the Black Radical Imagination. Originally from Oakland, CA, Victor has been based in Chicago for the past six and a half years. Pharaoh is in the Newcity Magazine Hall of Fame of “People Who Really Perform for Chicago.” In 2017 they co-founded Rescripted, an online arts journalism platform, and have written for The Chicago Reader, American Theatre, Playbill, Howlround, and more. Pharaoh’s recent Cultural Design projects include the National Advisory Council for Howlround Theatre Commons, Bard at the Gate at McCarter Theatre alongside Paula Vogel (Indecent). As a creator, Victor‘s most recent project was serving as the dramaturg on Will Davis & Chris Ashley’s production of As You Like It. In the same production they performed nightly as Jaques de Boys, and understudied Orlando and Oliver de Boys. As a dramaturg and director, Victor has worked with Danai Gurira (Familiar, Steppenwolf Theatre), Qui Nguyen (Strangeworld, Revenge Song), Beaufield Berry (In The Upper Room, Buffalo Women), Phylicia Rashad (The Roommate, Steppenwolf Theatre). Regional Acting Credits: As You Like It (La Jolla Playhouse), A Persephone Pageant (Walkabout Theatre Company), Notes From the Field (Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Stanford University), and The House That Will Not Stand (Berkeley Repertory Theatre).
www.reginavictor.com.

Angelisa Gillyard is a director and choreographer based out of Washington, DC. Most recently she directed the Helen Hayes Recommended Once on This Island for Constellation Theatre Company. She also directed Wanda’s Way and Mamalogues for 1st Stage and co-directed the Helen Hayes nominated Day of Absence with Raymond O. Caldwell at Theater Alliance. Her direction and choreography have also been seen at Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Young Playwrights’ Theater, Ally Theatre Company, In Series, Freshh Theatre Inc., University of Maryland, Montgomery College and Catholic University. Angelisa has an MBA, PhD in business and MFA in directing. For more information visit www.angelisa.net.