Heidi Duckler Dance Presents UNSETTLING RAMONA SALON SERIES

Los Angeles-based dance company Heidi Duckler Dance will present a 3-part series of virtual programs amplifying the histories and contemporary experiences of Native Americans in California through art, music, conversation and a deep dive into the story of Ramona. The salons will take place on three consecutive Thursdays: August 13th, August 20th, and August 27th at 5pm PDT.

In 2018, Heidi Duckler Dance began an initiative Ramona: Reimagining, Unsettling and Reckoning. Based on the story of Ramona inspired by what some consider the quintessential California story of the same name, written in 1884 by Helen Hunt Jackson. The first performance in 2018 was at San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. The second performance in December 2020 will be at the Southwest Museum Los Angeles.

In preparation for the December performance, HDD is presenting our Unsettling Ramona Salon Series by working collaboratively with Native perspectives to "unsettle" a story that was both important in creating visibility for the issue of Native rights in America and also problematic in that it romanticized California's history and ultimately failed to create political change. Recognizing our own positionality and complicity working and performing on land we are guests in, our company is honored to be joined by highly respected indigenous artists, activists, scholars, and thought leaders from Southern California. Our collaborators will share their work, lived experiences, and expertise on Native American history while examining the story of Ramona. Building towards a holistic understanding of these histories and perspectives will inform HDD's new "Unsettling Ramona" performance.

This week our third and final installment of the salon series is "Unsettling Sound," on Thursday August 27th at 5pm PT, featuring CSULB Assistant Professor Dr. Theresa Gregor (Iipai/Yaqui), indiginous punk musician and Musicology Ph.D. student at UCLA Kristen Martinez, and intellectual scholar Esmerlenda Pum.

Dr. Gregor will share her reading of Ramona, and her insights about how we can decolonize the fabrication of California's mythical past created by this novel, and shift the conversation to focus on the lived experiences of California Indian women, their struggles, resistance, and survival.

Martinez will be presenting on her archival work of Indigenous punk music and subcultures, as well as her experience in academia and studying punk music. She will also be sharing her band and her song writing process explaining their aim of amplifying Indigenous communities, the land we reside on, and communities of color.

Pum will unpack settler colonialism in regards to California settlement based on the settler colonial mentality of manifest destiny and the erasure (genocide) of Indigenous people. Through the California arch dream of fantasy escapism during which Ramona was written and the problems of romanticizing these settler-colonial fantasies.

Our second installment of the salon series last week was "Unsettling Self," featuring actor, writer, artist and photographer Robert I. Mesa (Navajo/Soboba), dancer, singer and musician Duane Minard (Yurok, Piaute), and Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry DeLanna Studi (Cherokee). Mesa shared and discussed his film, Devon's Forrest, a love story that portrays the unbelievable amount of Indigenous Women that go missing in the US and Canada. Minard talked about where his traditional acting career started with the Ramona Pageant in Hemet, California and discussed acting for both Non-Native and Native playwrights and screenwriters, which led to his own journey into playwriting. Studi shared about her work as a Native Woman, as an actor, playwright, advocate, and new Artistic Director of Native Voices.

Rewatch!

Our first installment was "Unsettling Story," featuring Diné multimedia documentarian Pamela J. Peters who was born and raised on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and scholar Dr. Yve Chavez who was born and raised in Los Angeles, California as a member of the Tongva tribe. Peters explored how Indian representation and removal policies are translated in Hollywood filmmaking and how visual sovereignty through a Native lens can promote the perseverance of Native American/American Indian community populations despite decades of colonial assimilationist policies. Dr. Chavez discussed the history of California's missions and their role in shaping public perception of Spanish colonial legacies and Indigenous experiences in Southern California from the late nineteenth century through today.

Rewatch the salon below!