“Are the Storytellers There? Are the Stories Going to Be Told?” by Edward Wemytewa Edward Wemytewa is a founder of Idiwanan An Chawe, a new (and the first) Zuni language theater. For the past 15 years, Roadside and traditional Native American artists of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico have been engaged in an exchange. A joint creation, Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain: Following the Seasons, will be performed in April at The Untold Stories Festival at Arizona State University. The Zuni people, one of the most traditional tribes in the U.S., trace their beginnings in New Mexico back more than 10,000 years.
			Here at Zuni, our language and our connection to the land are important. Idiwanan An Chawe tells stories in the Zuni language because we are concerned about the language. We have to maintain it. Who we are, our religion, our history, our culture, are embodied in our language. If the Zuni language is lost, how will we make prayers; how will we be Zuni? We are finding that theater — telling our stories through live performance — is a good way to keep the language alive. Last year, in the winter months, we created a new play about the Zuni Salt Lake called Ma’l Okyattsik An Denihalowilli:we (Gifts from Salt Woman). The Salt Lake is important to us because it is where the Salt Mother lives. We make pilgrimages there for health reasons, to make prayers, and, of course, to gather salt. But the Salt Mother has not always lived at the Zuni Salt Lake. She used to live at K’yanahnakn’a (Lake That Was Emptied). When the salt deposits dried up at K’yanahnakn’a, the Salt Mother moved, and the people blamed themselves for not taking better care of the lake. The Frog Clan adopted the lake, draining and cleaning it every year. There was the hope that the Salt Mother would return, so the lake became a shrine. Roadside Theater and Idiwanan An Chawe perform Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain. photo by Tim Cox Then, in 1904, the federal government began building the Black Rock Dam just east of the main village. It was completed in 1908, but for the next 25 years there were all kinds of problems, and the dam silted, destroying forever K’yanahnakn’a, once home of the Salt Woman. The shrine and way of life for the Frog Clan were destroyed. Now it looks like Salt Woman’s present home, Ma’k’yay’a, is threatened. Ma’k’yay’a is on the Zuni Reservation, however, the state issued a permit to a coal company to mine coal on land just twelve miles to the east. Water is very scarce around here, so we are worried. The coal company says that they are taking measures to ensure that the lake doesn’t dry up, but we don’t believe them because we have hydrologists who say otherwise. The coal company hydrologists have contradicted themselves many times on their points, and have left out information that doesn’t work for them. It reminds us of the Black Rock Dam. The government built the Black Rock Dam for us becausethey said we would become more successful. Instead, our farming has stopped because the dam didn’t hold enough water. When we did research for our play, we found that the government had more in mind than just trying to block a body of water. The project was also about making a reservation — centralizing Indians so they could be made manageable. It was about taking land away. It was about educating us to forget our cultural ways. The realization was very upsetting, but, at the same time, it was rewarding that we had access to this kind of information, and that we could share it with our people. When we made the play, we also made five radio programs that aired on KSHI, Zuni community radio. When they started to air, people stopped us on the street; people stopped us at the store; people let us know that they heard us on the radio. Our programs were live. Sometimes we would be a few minutes late getting on the air, and people would start calling in and saying, “Are the storytellers there? Are the stories going to be told?”
	When we did research for our play, we found that the government had more in mind than just trying to block a body of water.

	The Life of a Community and the Landscape That Influences It The Choteau- Roadside Exchange. Roadside Theater, the Performing Arts League/Prairie Mountain Players (PAL/PMP) of Choteau, Montana, and the Artist and Community Connection of Austin, Texas conducted a two year exchange through which two new plays were created, The Coming Home: The Reunion by PAL/PMP and New Ground Revival by Roadside Theater. In the spring of 1998, a cultural exchange was conducted between the artists and audiences of these two rural communities. PAL/PMP traveled to the Cumberland Plateau to perform their play and conduct workshops, and Roadside traveled to Choteau to do the same. Below is an editorial reprinted with permission from the Acantha of Choteau, Montana, where it appeared on April 22, 1998.
					Hometown Proud: Plays Send Message of Family, Community Worth by Melody Martinsen, Acantha Editor From the coal mines of Appalachia to the cattle ranches of the Rocky Mountain Front, the stories of families and communities tell us who we are and tell others what we value. The twin plays, presented in Choteau last weekend drove home that message in a different, but touching and enjoyable manner. Sandie Hodgskiss and Mike Morris of Choteau, Montana enjoy a potluck dinner in Clintwood, Virginia. The plays, the product of nearly two years of work by the Performing Arts League and Prairie Mountain Players in Choteau and by Roadside Theater in Kentucky, are built around the stories that are the very fabric of each community. Playing both Saturday and Sunday to a full house in Choteau Pavilion, the actors and singers in both theater troupes shared their music, their memories and their messages with an appreciative audience. New Ground Revival, the Roadside Theater production, featured four members of the Mullins family of Clintwood, Virginia, a group of singers whose voices blended in clear, beautiful harmonies, as well as two singers and musicians from Roadside Theater. With the cadence of the mountains of Appalachia sounding in every word they spoke or sang, the Roadside Theater group told of the need to heed the stories of grandfathers and grandmothers, and to hand those stories down from generation to generation. The members of the Choteau play took this advice. Through the skillful writing of Sue Facklam and Myrna Paulus, they spun Choteau’s stories into the narrative of a play, The Coming Home: The Reunion, that portrayed a typical Choteau family Fourth of July get-together. With all the hustle and bustle of the holiday, with the patriotism, the over-indulgence in spirits, the dancing, and the rodeoing, the play tells the story of one of the town’s busiest weeks. It also, however, sent a message to the community: our strength lies in our diversity. Choteau can accommodate many individuals with different beliefs and opinions who are united by their sense of community and their desire to live here.
		Our communities were so different, but so much the same. Drama is a wonderful way to portray the life of a community and the landscape that influences it. Mary Sexton, Choteau
	One Sunday in Choteau, those folks from Kentucky sang in four churches and then went and did their play all afternoon! They’ve got some energy! Audience Member
	I love my community, and believe with all my heart that Choteau has something very special to offer. The opportunity to share that with someone else was a welcomed experience for me. This project has also shown the community what some people from little old Choteau can do, and maybe brought us a little closer or given us a better defined identity. Above all, I was most excited about the way we were received in Kentucky. We had never played to packed houses like we did there. The audiences were not only plentiful, but so accepting and responsive to us. I have even referred to this project as a religious experience because it has touched me so deeply and been so life altering. Karen Green, performer, Choteau

Now the Walls Are Finally Coming Down

Roadside began developing a course in Grassroots Theater during a three year residency at Cornell University (1990-1993). Subsequently, Roadside taught the course at the College of William and Mary in 1995-1996, and now at Arizona State University, where Theresa Holden, long-time Roadside partner and director of The Artist and Community Connection, serves as lead instructor. Roadside’s textbook for the course, From the Ground Up: Grassroots Theater in Historical and Contemporary Perspective, is also being used this year for courses at William and Mary, the University of Pittsburgh, Manchester College, and Rowan University. Following is an excerpt of an interview with Dr. Bonnie Eckard, Chairperson of the Arizona State University Department of Theater.

Students in ASU’s Grassroots Theater class take a break. I decided to offer the Grassroots Theater course largely because I saw a door and was willing to go through it. ASU Public Events is doing this two year project (the “Untold Stories Festival”) and, as a result, we have the advantage of all these grassroots artists in one place where students can have direct access to them. The course also goes right along with department and university goals. Our president has declared that the research we do in this university enrich the local culture and society. There has been a separation of university and community since the earlier part of this century and now, the walls are finally coming down. Theater is going through a similar transition. Theater should be made for and about the population at large, as opposed to an elite few. However, there is still a stigma attached to this work. Some students say, “Well, isn’t this just some kind of leftover 60’s movement thing?” and, “Well, this may be really good for the community, but is it good art?” The only way I know to deal with resistance from students is to bring these preconceptions out and look at them. For example, some individuals may feel that they’ve been oppressed by having to deal with diversity. We need to help the university community look at these fears in a non-threatening way. If we’re able to own the resistance maybe we can make some changes. It’s been extraordinary for people to hear voices that they haven’t heard before, or perhaps from their own communities. A student may initially feel like an outsider in the class because he is, for example, a white man. As the course develops, hopefully he will realize that many people feel like this constantly, while feeling like the outsider is something he only experiences rarely. He may begin to see that it is important for him to hear and be open to different voices. We have a number of faculty sitting in on the class and others who are active - going out in the community and watching the work. There has been much support from the faculty about this class. There’s been a lot of interest and a lot of support philosophically. I think that’s a very positive indication that there is movement toward community-based theater in traditional academia. “Untold Stories Festival” At ASU Roadside’s Kim Neal Cole and members of the Phoenix Boys and Girls Club dramatize a story. Roadside’s most intense residency this year is at Arizona State University in Tempe. Through mentorships with five visiting professional companies, more than twenty community and campus groups are creating new theater and dance performances from their own experiences and values. A sampling of the local partners includes the Phoenix Boys and Girls Club, Centro de Amistad, African American Studies, the St. Peter Indian Mission School, and the Hillel Jewish Student Center. The year-long festival, “Untold Stories: Celebrating Campus and Community,” is sponsored by ASU’s Public Events and the American Festival Project. Acting with Roadside as mentors are Junebug Productions, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, El Teatro de la Esperanza, and Idiwanan An Chawe. As new plays and dance performances are made, they are presented to the public in a variety of Valley venues. April 9-11, at Grady Gammage Auditorium, all of the work will be curated in a culminating celebration of diversity.

Blackey Residency

For the past two years, Roadside Theater and Appalshop have been conducting a community residency based at the C. B. Caudill Store, once a country store and meeting place for the community, and now a budding history center and living museum, located in the economically hard-hit mountain community of Blackey, Kentucky. One of the residency activities is a storytelling project in the Letcher Elementary School. Here are two of the stories that were collected by students from their elders. With Roadside’s help, the students turn these stories into dramatic presentations and perform them at their school and in the community.

The Bucking Cow
By Lee Madden

This is a story of two boys, a herd of cattle, and a dumb idea. One of the boys was my Grandpa Charlie, who was about 10 years old, and the other was my Uncle Ivan, who was about 15. This story happened around 1930 or 1940.

My paw said that any food you had at that time, you had to raise yourself. This included any meat you wanted to eat. Kids who were raised during this time had to learn early how to take care of a garden and any farm animals that the family needed to survive. This all brings me to the story that I want to tell you.

My paw and Uncle Ivan were driving cattle in from the pasture for the night, and they knew that they were going to come up to a ridge in just a little ways. My Uncle Ivan thought it would be funny if he climbed up on that ridge, jumped on one of the cows, and rode it home.

As they were getting close to the ridge, my Uncle Ivan ran until he got in front of the cows, climbed up on that ridge, perched on top of a fence post, and, no more than a few seconds later, jumped on the back of one of the cows.

Now that cow didn’t know what had landed on its back so it started bucking. It bucked him so high that it threw him plumb up and back over the fence and sprained his arm something awful.

They brought the cattle on in for the night with my Uncle Ivan crying every step of the way, and my grandpa laughing all the way. That was the first time, but not the last time, my Uncle Ivan did that.

Wayne and His Monkey
Told to Allison Blair by Mr. Charles Whitaker

One day Wayne came home from Germany, and he brought a monkey with him. Since he had come home, he’d go out with his friends and get drunk all the time. One night, when he went out, his uncle got the idea that he was going to scare Wayne so he’d quit drinking.

He went in his room and pulled off one of the sheets from the bed. What he didn’t know was that the monkey done everything he did. So Wayne’s uncle put that sheet over him and hid behind a tree.

When Wayne came up through the woods, his uncle jumped out from behind a tree and scared him so bad he ran all the way home. Then Wayne’s uncle heard something behind him. He turned around, and the monkey scared him so bad he ran to the house right behind Wayne.