Indigenous Artists To Premiere WIND In Osage Nation Homelands
WIND features two events, a workshop for the local Indigenous communities and a multimedia performance that is open to the public.
In February 2025, WIND, an intercultural, Indigenous performance and workshop, will premier in Kansas City. This innovative project is spearheaded by artistic directors Amado Espinoza (Qhichwa), Maura García (non-enrolled Cherokee/Mattamuskeet), and Yura Sapi (Kichwa), who will collaboratively devise a multimedia performance exploring the element of wind and its profound connections to creation, land, and storytelling.
WIND is deeply rooted in the rich traditions of Indigenous peoples from North and South America, honoring millennia-old practices of travel, trade, and intermarriage. The project seeks to combat colonial forces that have historically disrupted these vibrant cultural exchanges by harnessing the untamed spirit of the wind to foster collective creation and shared dreaming.
"Underneath the pavement of Kansas City is prairie land. Unlike the grasses which struggle to exist anymore, the wind doesn't care about the buildings or cars or people. It is still wild and untamed and forever invisible," shares García. "It is fast and carries words, sounds, and prayers throughout the whole world. It is ever-present in the form of air. Without it, we are dead in a matter of minutes. And yet, we cannot see it. We feel its presence or gauge its movement and patterns by the way it moves other objects. Wind in the form of a tornado can destroy an entire house, yet leave a cabinet full of delicate ceramics untouched. It caresses our skin and it brings down trees. It is magic."
WIND features two events, a workshop for the local Indigenous communities and a multimedia performance that is open to the public:
Interactive Community Workshop: February 22, 2025 from 11am - 3pm CST
Hosted at the Kansas City Indian Center (KCIC), this workshop invites KCIC members and the local Indigenous community to engage in creating music, choreography, and narrative storytelling. Activities will include instrument-making, dance learning, singing, and collaborative story creation.
Multimedia Performance & Artist Talk: February 23, 2025 at 2pm CST
The performance will debut in the Auditorium at the Woodneath Library Center. This free, public event will feature dance, song, textile art, and storytelling. Immediately following the performance, there will be an artist talk facilitated by Osage author Jimmy Lee Beason II. Afterwards, there will be refreshments in the lobby provided by Indigenous-owned coffee shop, Cafe Corazon. The Woodneath Library Center camp features plantings of grasses and wildflowers native to the prairie ecosystem that once covered much of the greater Kansas City region. The artists invite people to arrive at the campus early to walk the trails and experience the interaction between the prairie landscape and prairie wind.
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