Photo by Adam Cooper-Terán
Shooting Columbus is an immersive interactive performance that fuses multimedia, devised theatre, and installation art. The central premise of the piece asks: If Indigenous scientists built a time machine and went back to 1492 to shoot Columbus, how would life be different? The Shooting Columbus Collective, comprised mostly of indigenous artists from the Southwest region, lead by video/audio artist Adam Cooper-Terán (Chicano/Yaqui), interdisciplinary artist/writer Denise Uyehara, and director Rachel Bowditch, with Chandra Narcia (Akimel O’Odham, Laguna and Hopi), Alex Soto (Tohono O’Odham), Tygel Pinto, Klee Benally, and Ryan Pinto (Diné/Navajo), explores this question through a visual, somatic and theatrical language. The Collective also begins conversation with local tribal community members and this dialogue informs the project. Diné community member, Fern Benally, and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University also serve as partners on the project.
Shooting Columbus focuses directly on issues affecting local Arizona-based Indigenous tribes, including the ongoing forced relocation of thousands of Diné/Navajo to ensure coal and uranium mining, the U.S.-Mexico Border preventing Tohono O’odham from traveling for ceremony, and exploring the intersection between Akimel O’odham and Japanese Americans imprisoned at Gila River Internment Camp. The work will have a rolling premiere in 2017, beginning at Borderlands Theater in Tucson and then The Ice House in Phoenix, AZ, and on Indigenous land.
- $32,400 to support Shooting Columbus (MAP 2015)
- $3,445 to general operating support for Denise Uyehara, Adam Cooper-Terán, and Rachel Bowditch
- $2,800 to general operating support for New York Foundation for the Arts, Inc.
Connect
Shooting Columbus’ Facebook page
Denise Uyehara’s Facebook page
Chandra Narcia’s Facebook page
New York Foundation for the Arts’ Facebook page
New York Foundation for the Arts’ Twitter
