The TurnPark Art Space will host the traveling production of Turtle Island - a multimedia presentation of one of the world’s oldest creation stories.
“They will tell the story of the coming of Skywoman from the sky world to the back of the turtle, and of her giving birth to a daughter, and the daughter eventually giving birth to twins, and these twins go about making the earth the way we know it," said Peter Jemison. "And there's this conflict between the left-handed twin and the right-handed twin, this conflict between the positive and the negative, between the destructive force and the positive force, or the creative force.”
Jemison is Heron Clan member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, and the former site manager of the Ganandagan historical site in Victor, New York. An artist, his work appears at MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the British Museum, and the Denver Art Museum.
While the Haudenosaunee story of how the world came into being is ancient, Jemison says its themes are as prevalent as ever.
“There are those who believe that you have to show your might by being able to go to war and by destroying your enemy, and that your enemy is lesser than you, and that whole notion of one being superior over the other, and one being better than the other," he explained to WAMC. "This is kind of playing out in our world, and we say within this story that these forces have been here from the beginning. And people kind of choose the path that they think represents the right way. And, and so there's this constant struggle for us to, in this case, to protect our mother, the earth, because we know that faces that are unborn yet, we say are going to come and they need a place to live. And we depend on all these living things that are coming to us now from the harvest, and the changing of the seasons - All of these different things are taking place before us and revealing the beauty of the world. And so, we on the positive side have to try to protect that and to hand it forth to the generations that are coming in the future.”
The telling of the Turtle Island story brings traditional song and dance to the fore.
“These songs have been passed down generation to generation within the families of our Iroquois communities, and they're the songs that we use that are referred to as Ohwęjagehká, or dances of the earth," said Bill Crouse. "So, we use them as social dances when we gather, usually during the evenings of our big ceremonies in our long houses across Iroquoia, and we're able to share these with the public.”
Crouse is a Hawk Clan member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, group leader, singer, lecturer, and dancer with the Allegany River Indian Dancers, and the founder of the Skywoman Iroquois Dance Theater.
“They're powerful in that they give us this strong sense and reminding of giving thanks," he continued. "For instance, we have a dance called the corn dance and we have a dance called the fish dance, where we're able to give thanks for these important sources of food for all people. And we've got dances for just about anybody's skill level. We've got some easy dances, easy going dances that people can participate in, and then we've got some that are a little bit you can bust a move and really dance fast.”
Like Jemison, Crouse says the stories passed down from generation to generation hold valuable lessons for the present moment.
“We're coming to a time where a lot of our old prophecies are - We're seeing that," he told WAMC. "And it's kind of like, this is going to happen, and that's going to happen, and it's been kind of foretold in our prophecies. And as we see it, see these things taking place- It's scary on one point, but we're able to teach these and pass it on as a way of, I guess, prolonging our world and as a way of staving it off, doom off and giving thanks and keeping things going.”
The massive turtle puppet that will soar above the performance is the work of French street theater company Plasticiens Volants & Air Fabric, the work of which has appeared at events like the Olympic Games and World Cup. Stage director Jean-Philippe Hemery says the floating terrapin is string-operated.
“Two [people] can manipulate it, and because it's just two [people], we can go almost everywhere, because just depending on what we have on the sky, if it's open or not, and we can go through the audience," said Hemery. "The phrase of the company is, ‘from our dream, let's occupy the sky.’ Because the sky is an open space, is the largest stage we can find, and we can share.”
Turtle Island’s West Stockbridge performance at TurnPark Art Space is set for 6 p.m. Friday. The tour continues with appearances at Prospect Park in Brooklyn Saturday and Hudson River Park in Manhattan Sunday.
