Highlighting Our 12th Annual Summer Institute
Lianna Tootoosis
Lianna Tootoosis is an Ojibway that comes from the unceeded territory of Walpole Island first nation in the most southern part of Ontario Canada. Lianna has a broad scale of experience from being a life skills coach/facilitator inspiring young indigenous to creating theatrical story weaving in productions. She has a theatre/powwow dance background in many of her performances . Some of the work she has collaborated in stems from her education at Trent University where she attained a BA Honors degree in Indigenous Studies where she took an emphasis in Indigenous Theatre. Her work includes many performances in dance from instructors such as Murial Miguel, Daystar Rosalie Jones, Marrie Mumford, Santee Smith and Rulan Tangen. Her current aspirations are building on a masters thesis in social work using mask making as a methodology. Lianna will utilize the program to help in her educational goal with the intention of learning from instructors and other recipients of the program. This program will be the start of a personal journey in efforts to build on an education goal and as well study. This will not only enlighten but will educate the creative aspect that is needed for the goals to build on this mask making methodology.
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Dancing Earth self produces and collaborates with partners for:
*Dance programming for youth
*Cultivating Artist Leadership : mentoring in arts management
*Seasonal Institutes for Dancing Earth intensive movement training
*Restoring the Source Retreats Cultural Exchanges
*Creation of original Dance works, with costumes, music, video projection, visual art design and construction with sets and props
*Cinematic Movement : Dance on Film
*Choreography commissioned by schools, companies or collaborators
*Interdisciplinary gatherings and festivals
About Dancing Earth
Dancing Earth Creations dynamically activates our mission, to create contemporary dance and related arts through global indigenous and intercultural relationships centered in ecological and cultural diversity for creativity, health, and wellness.
Founded by Artistic Director Rulan Tangen, to serve a need rarely met in the USA, DEC gives hope and opportunity to Native, mixed, global Indigenous and BIPOC talent who have been largely outside the dialogue of mainstream performance because of lack of access. DEC is an organic constellation of largely self-taught dancers, composers, costumers, filmmakers, and spoken word artists.
Together, DEC artists work with community members, culture carriers, and inter-cultural elders to explore the rich diversity of ancestral heritage, contemporary identity, and relationship building, by collaborating on innovative ecologically themed performances. DEC's work promotes environmental awareness, cultural diversity, and understanding between peoples through contemporary arts expressions.
“We gather as individual artists to create experimental yet elemental dances that reflect our rich cultural heritage as contemporary global peoples. We strive to embody the unique essences of cultural perspectives by creation and renewal of artistic and cultural movement rituals. Ancient and futuristic, our dances are an elemental language of bone and blood memory in motion.” - Founding Director, Rulan Tangen