About this Event
Celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day with Grammy Award–winning composer, 2021 Helen Merrill award-winning playwright, librettist, interdisciplinary artist, actor, choreographer, eagle dancer, and hoop dancer Ty Defoe (Giizhig). Ty, who is from the Oneida and Ojibwe Nations, interweaves artistic projects with social justice, indigeneity, trans rights, Indigi-Queering, and environmentalism. He will be joined by multiple other artists including Grammy-nominated cellist/vocalist/composer and world music artist Dawn Avery, vocalist, actress, percussionist, and choreographer Joan Henry, actor Jake Hart, Eagle Project theater company founder Opalanietet, and actor Tanis Parenteau, among others.
Registration is required. Attendees must show proof of vaccination and wear a mask indoors.
Ty Defoe's many awards, residencies, and fellowships include TransLab Fellow, Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award, Cordillera International Film Festival Finalist, 2021 Cultural Capital Fellow, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center finalist, and the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. His songs have been featured at Lincoln Center, Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, 54 Below, The Met, and The Kennedy Center. Ty’s theatrical work has been presented at Guthrie Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Institute of Musical Theater, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Native Voices at the Autry, The New Victory Theater, and more. Ty's works include TransWorld, Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, and more. Ty is a core member of All My Relations Collective, recent piece: GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky.
Dawn Avery shares contemporary soundscapes from spiritual, pop and classical elements that reflect a deep devotion to sacred traditions, including her own Mohawk heritage. She has worked with musical luminaries Luciano Pavarotti, Sting, John Cale, R. Carlos Nakai, Phillip Glass, and Grover Washington, Jr. She writes in a variety of styles from mystic world pop to classical, often fusing styles, and has collected awards from American Dance Festival at Duke University, Smithsonian, and the Ford Foundation's Indigenous Knowledge, Expressive Culture grant program of the American Composers Forum, and Meet the Composer. Her works have been performed at schools and performing arts centers across the country including the Lincoln and Kennedy Centers, Carnegie and Merkin Halls. Avery also composes for theatre with Spiderwoman Theatre in NYC, the Alliance for New Music-Theatre in Washington DC and Heather Henson’s (of the Jim Henson legacy) production of Ajijaak on Turtle Island. The latter Indigenous based project led to a short run at the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, for which she co-wrote music with an almost all Indigenous team for an environmental theatrical work.
Jake Hart works across the country: onstage, onscreen, and in sound studios. He voices everything from cartoons and video games to national commercials. Currently, he is a professional actor, voice actor, SAG-AFTRA Native Americans Committee member, the Indigenous Development Director of Nevada’s Cordillera International Film Festival, and Red Eagle Soaring board member.
Joan Henry is a versatile performer connected to the living earth who has been featured in works by Rachel Chavkin (Primer for a Failed Superpower), Jonathan McCrory (How the Light Gets In / Water Is Life, T. Defoe & T. Sinutoke composers), and Henson & Defoe’s spectacular CRANE: On Earth, In Sky. Concert appearances include the International Festival of the Voice, Clearwater & New York Music Festivals, and New York City’s annual Indigenous Peoples Day . Her more distant past includes the National Tours of Camelot with Richard Harris and the West Side Story 30th Anniversary Company; a slew of recordings including two jazz albums with stellar jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette –Earthwalk and Music for the Fifth World, and appearances with Pete Seeger, Cornelius (Neal) Tate, and Waylon Jennings, to name a few. Recordings include solo CDs and collaborations: traditional songs, stories co-produced with her son GC Yerry, contemporary works with longtime musical allies Gus Mancini, Dennis Yerry and other fellow artists, and the debut album of her straight-ahead jazz sextet with indigenous wings – SPIRITED.
Ryan Victor Pierce or "Opalanietet" is a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation of New Jersey. Upon graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Opalanietet has performed in workshops and productions at such renown New York theatrical institutions as New Dramatists, LaMaMa E.T.C. and New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. In November of 2020, Opalanietet made history by giving the first-ever Lenape Land Acknowledgement at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. In 2012, Opalanietet founded Eagle Project, a theater company dedicated to exploring the American identity through the performing arts and our Native American heritage. Through his leadership, Eagle Project has collaborated with and performed at the Public Theater, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Ashtar Theater in Palestine. In April of 2020, Eagle Project collaborated with the American Indian Community House of New York City and First Nations Theatre Guild to create Native Theatre Thursdays, a virtual reading series of new Native work. Opalanietet is currently studying for his doctorate in Theatre & Performances Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.
Tanis Parenteau is an actor/producer and member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. Her work focuses on uplifting contemporary Native stories and smashing tired, harmful Native stereotypes. She is the Tribal Liaison at AlterTheater and is on the SAG-AFTRA National Native Americans Committee. Tanis also works in casting as an assistant/consultant and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from The New School for Drama.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Great Hall at The Cooper Union, 7 East 7th Street, New York, United States
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