initiative that makes visible, public,
and transparent the urgent decolonizing
work the performing arts field in what
is currently called the US must do.
Emily Johnson/Catalyst, The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better – Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s).
Performance view, featuring Angel Acuña, Denaysha Macklin, Kim Savarino, Stacy Lynn Smith, Ashley Pierre-Louis and
Jeffrey Gibson’s sculpture Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House, Socrates Sculpture Park, 2020.
Photo credit: Photo by Scott Lynch
We at FNPA are uniquely committed to visioning and action, with and for Indigenous performing artists, in service to the following:
a) aligning and making visible the entire Indigenous field of performance practice in what is currently called the US including Indigenous artists, Indigenous arts workers, organizations, and collectives;
b) prioritizing the work of institutional decolonization in the contemporary performance field;
c) readying the US-based Indigenous performing arts sector to be a true global partner with our allies and kin in what is currently called Canada and Australia, as well as Aotearoa (NZ), and elsewhere–areas where robust infrastructures for development, convening, research, commissioning and international touring in support of Indigenous artists already exist, as well as government and public acknowledgement of settler violence;
d) readying the so-called US-based, Indigenous performing arts sector to be a true global partner in areas of the world where, as is such currently in the US – there is no current infrastructure for development, convening, research, commissioning, and international touring in support of Indigenous artists, nor a government or public acknowledgement of settler violence and reparations work; and,
e) uniquely focusing on building local and international touring, commissioning, and residency support for Indigenous artists in a way not currently addressed by our partners and collaborators indicated above.
FNPA works in partnership with Decolonial Action Coalition’s strategies for change – which include the development of institutional decolonial assessment and public review processes. Moreover, we seek to do this work collectively across the national landscape, through networks and modeling community-centered and decolonial ways of organizing, advocating, learning, and fostering change.
Our understanding of decolonization aligns with that of the Decolonial Action Coalition. Their words are excerpted below from Notes for Equitable Funding From Arts Workers.