Heal the Divide – To History:Two, by Jaisey Bates

Blog, Heal The Divide, Plays

Every week we will be sharing new plays by our Heal the Divide playwrights.  This week’s play is To History: Two, by Jaisey Bates – an Indigenous-heritaged Planet Nine playwright currently residing (hopefully not for much longer) in La La Land.


TO HISTORY
/ To Whom It 
May Concern.

TWO: War
/ Games

This Letter
was inspired by
a FB friend’s
FB posts re:

a town
with a school
with a Native
mascot.

A town
with a chamber
of commerce whose
leadership set up

“The First Annual
Hunt for the Indian!”
treasure hunt

aiming to encourage
shoppers to Shop Local
during the holidays.

A town
where there was a
massacre of Natives.

A town
where the government
paid bounties for Native
captives, or scalps:

Man.
Woman.
Or child.

SPECIAL THANKS to Amelia Tuplin, Member of the Maine Indigenous Peoples Panel, for her permission to share her eloquent and powerful words with all who read this play.


Download (PDF, 837KB)

 

Heal the Divide – To History: One, by Jaisey Bates

Heal The Divide, Plays

Every week we will be sharing new plays by our Heal the Divide playwrights.  This week’s play is To History: One, by Los Angeles playwright Jaisey Bates


TO HISTORY
/ To Whom It
May Concern.

One: War
/ Paint

This Letter
was inspired by
a friend’s FB post

re: a Native play
silenced by
a new sculpture

based on a scaffold
that silenced
Natives’ lives.

Here’s a quote from her post (also included with her permission in the ensemble spoken word poem play):

“NOBODY came to our event tonight because our ENTIRE audience went to protest at the Walker instead of celebrating OUR own Native-made art right here. A perfect example of how our communities of color are forced over and over to defend our people and histories and to educate at the expense of celebrating our own vitality.” — Rhianna Yazzie, Founder, New Native Theatre, MN

Here’s the goal of this Letter:

“Putting the history side-by-side to the night when people from the Native community had to choose to either celebrate who we are or fight for our voices to be heard.” — Vanessa Goodthunder (Dakota), Company Member, New Native Theatre

To learn about New Native Theatre:
newnativetheatre.org


Download (PDF, 158KB)