Happy to Listen: Indigenous Perspectives on Art and Activism

Victoria Hunt and Emily Johnson

Tanz im August – Special Edition 2020

August 23, 2020

This first Episode of "Happy to Listen" is a talk between two proud indigenous artists, whose artistic visions are deeply influenced by their political and community activism. Victoria Hunt was born and raised in Australia, and traces her ancestry to Te Arawa, Rongowhaakata, Ngāti Kahungunu Maori, Irish, English and Finnish. She lives and works in the Gadigal Country of the Eora Nation, Sydney. Emily Johnson is from the Yup’ik nation and is of Yup’ik and settler descent, and lives in Mannahatta, Lenapehoking, the unceded homeland of the Lenapeyok people. They will share their stories to reveal the truths hidden in their colonial history and discuss the role of care and protection as part of their political and artistic practices. Hunt will show her film “TAKE” about the removal of the ancestral Maori meetinghouse by the British governor who brought herwith him to England, with choreography arising from the liminal spaces between history and emotion. Johnson will read an excerpt of “Surgent Love”, her story about the losing and finding of her grandma's wallet, which becomes a metaphor for the discovering and re-discovering of lost cultural connections.

Office, Minneapolis, MN, US612.597.7400emily@catalystdance.com

Emily Johnson / Catalyst is based on Mannahatta in Lenapehoking. We work to pay respect to Lenape homeland, people and ancestors past, present, and future by organizing with communities from the Lenape diaspora to build pathways for Lenapeyok return. We have been taught to name Lenape Nations and say cama’i to our relatives from Delaware Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, OK; Delaware Nation of Oklahoma in Anadarko, OK; Stockbridge-Munsee and Mohican Community in Wisconsin; Moravian Delaware of the Thames in Ontario, Canada; Munsee-Delaware Nation at Munceytown in Ontario, Canada; Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario, Canada. 

We strive to be in good relations with our kin—human and more than human—and in effort to support growing kinstillatory relations and sovereign, liberated futures we are anti-colonial and abolitionist in all capacities. We are committed to on-the-ground water and land protection, consistent decolonization work, and Land Back. 

Quyanaqvaa-lli elpeni to all Sovereign Nations, Indigenous and First Nations people who live in relation to and from Lenapehoking and upon whose lands we work and tour.

Cart (0)