Letter from the Productions Team:

After Minnesota’s mandated Shelter-in-Place, we knew that our space as a production would need to change. We knew that we would not have the opportunity to run our site-specific exploratory evening, one that was scheduled to begin with a land acknowledgement. 

The statement that we would give at the Barbara Barker Center for Dance is as follows:

We recognize that we are on Dakota land, the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people who were forcibly exiled from the land because of aggressive and persistent settler colonialism. We acknowledge and honor the Dakota people, ancestors and descendants, as well as the land itself.

 

As our production has been reimagined, we have had to reflect back on our values, some that include sustainability, exchanging knowledge and space making. What does space making look like on an online platform? How do we acknowledge the history of our space at the Barker and the spaces where work is rehearsed and filmed, when we are now sharing knowledge on our website?

Now, more than ever, we must recognize that this is our normal. Society’s ‘normal’ included marginalization, gentrification, pollution, overconsumption, deforestation, and oppression of peoples and spaces. These actions were, and currently are socially and politically excused and normalized. We see this as an opportunity to shift our perspective of normalcy. What are each of our legacies in contributing to a more equitable and sustainable environment for our communities?

 

We recognize the histories of the Dakota lives that were separated from the land that we now call our campus, and we celebrate the culture of our Indigenous neighbors on the West Bank. We give thanks to the opportunity to now remove ourselves from the space of the Barbara Barker to be able to seek a new platform, one that is not separated from the land, but stores hope for our future opportunities for healing, growth and community.