What Is the Color Of Two Spirit?
Indigenous Two Spirit / IndigiQueer / Native Trans Talk Circle
Ceremony, Intersectionality, Afro-Native Trans Lives Matter, Making Tradition
"I think trans* peoples stole the sunset and made it their flag... They transformed day into night, night into day. I think the trans* peoples are more ancient than my mama's stories después de pan dulce y té con leche... They paint the sky before we can see it, in its prolific potentiality of transition. I think the trans* peoples birthed creator..." - Don'Té Omé Lauren
Cover Photo: Dip into Sunset - by Pablo Macho, of the House of Machos
About Dancing Earth
Visit Us: dancingearth.org
FB: @DancingEarthCreations
Instagram: @dancing.earth
Dancing Earth Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations dynamically activates our mission to support Indigenous dance and related arts, to encourage and revitalize awareness of bio-cultural diversity through artistic expression, for the education and wellness of all peoples.
Dancing Earth has been named by Dance Magazine as “One of the Top 25 to Watch,” and are recipients of the National Museum of American Indian’s 2010 Expressive Arts Award. Dancing Earth recruits, cultivates, and creates opportunities for emerging global Indigenous talents in all aspects of artistic collaboration - including dance, choreography, music, costume, lighting, video, stage managing, and arts administration.
Dancing Earth gathers Indigenous collaborators, including: Nations of Blackfoot, Metis, Coushatta, Ixil and Tzeltil Maya, Papanga, Cambiva, Yaqui, Purepecha, Shoshone, Dine, Tsalagi, Hopi, Tewa, Tiwa, Towa, and Keresan of North Central and South America. They balance a commitment to share dances with regional, national and international communities at venues as varied as festivals, Universities, elementary-high schools, Native wellness gatherings, youth leadership symposiums, art museums, desert canyons, dried river beds, and symposiums for social-environmental justice.
Dancing Earth inspires creativity and cultural consciousness through community art practice, energetic dance training workshops, site specific rituals and full length eco-productions.
Monday, June 29
5-6:30pm PDT . 8-9:30pm EDT
ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION
A Two Spirit /IndigiQueer/Native Trans Talk Circle - A Panel Presentation Exploring Ceremony, Intersectionality, Afro-Native Trans Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter, Making of Two Spirit Tradition, Social Justice & much more.
Presenters: Shash Yázhí Charley, Fabiola Torralba, Cuauhtémoc Donté Lauren, Snowflake Calvert
Moderated By: Cuauhtemoc Peranda, M.F.A. Critical Dance Studies Ph.D. Student Fellow
About The Artists
Shash Yázhí Charley was raised on the Diné (Navajo) reservation in New Mexico. For the last 28 years Shash Yázhí, has implemented traditional Diné practices through working with activists and individuals who wish to create internal healing and balance in their lives. Shash Yázhí conducts individual sessions towards liberation and transformation to promote integrating and connecting the mind, body, heart and spirit.
Shash Yázhí has been at the forefront of advocating for LGBTQ-Two Spirit equality and justice. Currently Shash Yázhí is holding space of embodying a traditional gender society called Four Direction Fire Keepers - Dilbaa and Indigenous gender queer/trans male.
Fabiola Ochoa Torralba was born in Guerrero, Mexico and raised in the Westside of Yanaguana, San Antonio, Texas. Her experience as an activist, organizer, and cultural worker has led to collaborations with community groups, schools, galleries, and non-profit organizations for inner city youth to senior citizens, refugees, Spanish speakers, QTIPOC, and fine arts students. Their work has ranged from public dance actions to performance installations and theater productions hosted by Jump-Start Performance Company, Lady Base Gallery, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Mexic-Arte Museum, W-I-P San Antonio, and the Indigenous Choreographers Gathering at UC-Riverside.
Fabiola holds an A.A. in Dance, B.A. in Mexican American Studies and Anthropology, and an M.F.A in Dance. They have trained with leadership institutes by the Urban Bush Women, Dancing Earth Contemporary Creations, Dance/USA, F.I.E.R.C.E., Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and N.A.L.A.C. In addition to independent projects, they have worked as a performer, choreographer, project collaborator, and instructor with companies such as SpareWorks Dance, Dance Exchange, Safos Dance Theatre, Forklift Danceworks, Urban-15, and Dancing Earth Contemporary Creations. Her research engages intersectional politics, decolonial epistemologies, and (im)migrant identities. They enjoy facilitating dance making opportunities for movers of all backgrounds and interdisciplinary collaborations that explore performance and action. (*Photo Credit: Yasmín Parra Codina).
Cuauhtémoc Peranda (Mescalero Apache, Mexika-Chichimeca/Cano; & cihuaiolo butch queen) is a fifth-year Critical Dance Studies Ph.D. student at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Their academic studies have been supported by the U.S. Department of Education Native American Studies Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (G.A.A.N.N.) Fellowship, the Dean’s Distinguished Doctoral Student Fellowship, and the Max H. Gluck Arts Fellowship. Their research focuses on the history of the United States’ House Ballroom Scene, in particular the West Coast Ballscene, and its involvement in how queer, trans* and two-spirit black, and blackened indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere have deployed the dance form of vogue (voguing/Performance) as a praxis of decolonization, anti-colonialism, transformational resilience, and queering indigenous knowledge reclamation. They have presented their research at the 2016 Congress on Research in Dance & Society of Dance History Scholars Joint Conference, the 2017 UC Davis Sixth Annual Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium, Native American Studies Graduate Student Symposium, the 2017 UC Santa Cruz Queer and Trans People of Color Conference, and they were awarded the 2016 Lambda Graduate Student Service Award for their commitment to the success of the 2016 BlaqOUT Conference and the LGBT community at UC Riverside. They are the founder of the Graduate American Indian Alliance (GAIA) at UC Riverside, and were an organizing member of the UC Riverside 2018 ¡Presente! Summit, and with Cal-PEP & Father Zander Lauren, organized the 2019 World AIDS Day Ball and Community Panel, in Oakland,CA. As a dancer, they have performed throughout California, and has presented dance work in New York, Seattle, London, Honolulu, Berlin, Cambridge, and Tijuana, and have had the honor to teach and lecture at UCR, Stanford University, De Anza College, Pomona College, and California State University, Sacramento. They walk raise children in the West Coast Ballscenes, and they're known as "Overall Prince Don'Té Lauren" of The Legendary House of Lauren, International. They hold an M.F.A. in Dance from Mills College, and a B.A. in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University.
Snowflake Calvert is a Two-Spirit artist who serves as the Co-President of QUIL - Queers United for Intersectional Liberation. She produces queer events throughout California and Oregon that allow her to curate a vehicle for political, social, and cultural activism through the artistry of her radical queerness.
In addition, she is a professional dancer, teacher and entrepreneur. She was a member of The Haus of Towers, has worked with the BAAITS Powwow committee, teaches decolonization through movement workshops, is the former owner/director of The Dance Zone Studio, is hosting and participating in two-spirit talking circles.