Indigenous creatives explore identity and culture during a curated evening of storytelling

Susan Bland

1 Oct 2024

From left, Rena Priest, Rhiana Yazzie, and Deborah Taffa, Indigenous women writers who will appear as part of "Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire." — (From left) Indigenous women writers Rena Priest, Rhiana Yazzie, and Deborah Taffa will appear as part of "Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire." Photos courtesy of the artists.

Poetry, creative writing, and rich stories interlace for “Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire,” a specially curated celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day at the Moss Arts Center on Monday, Oct. 14, at 7:30 p.m.

Award-winning poet Rena Priest, first-person novelist Deborah Taffa, and leading playwright Rhiana Yazzie represent voices reaching well beyond their own tribal affiliations. These distinguished writers delve into tribal identity and the beauty — and tremendous challenges — of keeping culture, land, and traditions close.

“’Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire’ is a creation of the moment, a bespoke evening of storytelling curated to create a snapshot, a perspective for the Virginia Tech community,” said Andre Bouchard, the Moss Arts Center’s independent guest performing arts curator for its 2024-25 season. “Native storytelling is having a moment. For the first time we now have a voice — on stage, on the big and little screens, in literature, and beyond. We are finally beginning to unravel decades of invisibility. Each of the three featured artists was introduced to me through their writing first. The voices from this show present a view from the soul of Native America — the poetry, the theatre, and nonfiction writing. Within these voices you will find the humor, reflection, and spirit that give our communities direction and purpose.”

“Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire” is one of a trio of performances handpicked by Bouchard for his curatorial collaboration with the center. The series also includes “Native Comedy Jam,” featuring some of today’s most talented Indigenous comedic voices performing in the Moss Arts Center’s Cube on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and writer, performance artist, and social justice advocate george emilio sanchez’s “In the Court of the Conqueror,” a multidisciplinary theatre work reexamining place and its relationship to the past and present historical conflicts of Indigenous lands, which comes to the Cube on Thursday, April 24, and Friday, April 25, at 7:30 p.m.

About the 'Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire' artists

An enrolled member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, Priest served as the sixth Washington State Poet Laureate from 2021-23 and was named the 2022 Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. She is also the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, Indigenous Nations Poets, Nia Tero, and the Vadon Foundation.

Her debut collection, “Patriarchy Blues,” received an American Book Award, and her second collection, “Sublime Subliminal,” was published as the finalist for the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Her most recent book, “Northwest Know-How: Beaches,” includes poems, retellings of legends, and fun descriptions of 29 of the most beloved beaches in the Pacific Northwest. Priest’s nonfiction has appeared in High Country News, YES! Magazine, and Seattle Met.

Taffa has received praise from the New York Times, Elle magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, the Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle for her recently released memoir, “Whiskey Tender.” The book traces how a mixed-tribe Native girl — born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico — comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression.

Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She serves as the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine River Styx, and her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, and Best Travel Writing.

Playwright, director, and filmmaker Yazzie is the artistic director of New Native Theatre, which she started in 2009 as a response to the lack of connection and professional opportunities between Twin Cities theatres and the Native community. The organization offers a new way of looking at, thinking about, and staging Native American stories.

A Navajo Nation citizen (Ta’neeszahnii bashishchiin dóó Táchii’nii dashinalí), she’s seen her plays on stages from Alaska to Mexico, including in Carnegie Hall’s collaboration with American Indian Community House and Eagle Project. She has a new co-commissioned play in the works with Long Wharf Theatre and Rattlestick Theater, and is developing her play, “Nancy,” about Nancy Reagan and her intersection with Indian Country in the '80s, astrology, and her little-known Native heritage. Yazzie also wrote, directed, and starred in her first feature film, “A Winter Love,” which premiered in 2022.

She received the 2021 Lanford Wilson and 2020 Steinberg awards and is a 2018 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow. Yazzie was recognized with a 2017 Sally Ordway Award for Vision and has been a Playwrights’ Center fellow multiple times.

“Voices from the Urban Indigenous Campfire” is supported in part by a gift from Dr. Rosemary Blieszner and Dr. Stephen P. Gerus.

Related events

The three artists will spend several days on campus following the performance, speaking with students and visiting English, sociology, and Native American studies classes. Priest and Yazzie will also participate in the talk “Stories as Data: A Panel on Oral Tradition in Research and the Arts” presented by the Ati: Wa:oki Indigenous Community Center and Solitude-Fraction, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, from 6-7 p.m. in Newman Library’s Goodall Room, formerly the Multipurpose Room. The event is free and open to the public.

Tickets

Tickets for the performance are $25 for general admission and $10 for students and youth 18 and under. Tickets can be purchased online; at the Moss Arts Center's box office, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300 during box office hours.

Venue and parking information

The performance will be held in the center’s Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, located within the Street and Davis Performance Hall at 190 Alumni Mall. Convenient parking is available in the North End Parking Garage on Turner Street and in downtown Blacksburg. Find more parking details online.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact Jamie Wiggert at least 10 days prior to the event at 540-231-5300 or email wiggertj@vt.edu during regular business hours.