Deeply personal performance emphasizing the importance of connection and reverence for ancestors, land, and the animate in achieving a sense of belonging.

Timothy White Eagle's Indian School is a solo performance that delves into themes of cultural displacement, identity, and the enduring impact of historical trauma on both personal and communal belonging. Weaving together timelines of America’s ongoing projects of genocide and hydraulic engineering that reshape landscapes and sever connections to place, White Eagle explores incomplete family archives and assimilation tactics that distance us from understanding and belonging.

Through a deeply personal lens, White Eagle reflects on his own adoption by a white family and his struggle to reconnect with his heritage. He also traces the story of a boy, loosely based on his grandfather, who was forcibly removed from his tribal family and sent to government-run boarding schools designed to assimilate Native American children. This dark chapter in American history is central to White Eagle's exploration of intergenerational trauma and resilience.

The performance offers a historical exploration through contemporary ritual theater and an expansive audio-visual design. Co-created with dramaturg/director and writer Hatlo, Indian School spans time and place and submerges the audience in a river of memory.

The collaboration includes original music by Olivia Komahcheet, live sound design by Crystal Cortez, video projection by DB Amorin, scenic design by Juniper Shuey, and lighting by Geoff Korf, with support from professor emeritus John Kendall Wilson. Indian School ultimately celebrates the healing power of storytelling and ritual in community.

The artists have assembled a bibliography of books, documentaries, articles and resources for anyone wishing to engage with the wider context of this work.

Artists

Co-creator, Lead Artist, Performer: Timothy White Eagle

Co-creator, Director, Dramaturg: Hatlo

Adjuvant: John Kendall Wilson

Lighting Design: Geoff Korf

Production Design: Juniper Shuey

Video Design & Installation: DB Amorin

Sound Design: Crystal Cortez

Live Instruments & Vocals: Olivia Komahcheet

Associate Producer: Pepper Pepper

Indian School was developed through the Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence program, with generous funding from The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation. Additionally, the artist received support from 4Culture’s Arc Artist Fellowship, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture’s Hope Corps and City Artist grants, Tulalip Tribes Charitable Contributions, and the generous support of John Robinson.

Photos by Steven Miller

Indian School

Avant Premiere

November 14-16, 2024 | 8pm **
SOLD OUT**
Rush tickets are available on a first-come-first-serve basis. Please arrive 1 hour prior to each showtime to put your name on the waitlist. Unclaimed tickets will be released to the rush list right before the curtain call.

Dress Rehearsal: November 13, 2024 | 7pm*

This is a non-traditional seating performance.
Tickets for this masks-required* Covid Safe(r) dress rehearsal are available for attendance at a discounted rate.
E-mail
boxoffice@ontheboards.org for tickets.

About the Artists

Timothy White Eagle(he/him)

Timothy White Eagle

he/him

Timothy White Eagle (he/him)  is a mixed-race artist of Indigenous and European heritage. His art practice rises from a decades-long exploration of traditional ritual and embodiment teachings. A true multidisciplinary artist, Timothy creates installations, immersive storytelling performances, and photography, exploring life’s profound connection to the unseen world. His works have been showcased across three continents, and his most recent performance, The Indigo Room, premiered in NYC, Seattle, and the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival, and is currently touring nationally. Winner of the Western Artist Alliance/Advancing Indigenous Performance Launch Pad award in 2019. Timothy has received grant support from the Seattle Office of Arts, 4 Culture, and in 2023, received a MAP Fund award for the creation of his upcoming work, “Indian School.”  Timothy toured internationally with MacArthur Genius Taylor Mac on his Pulitzer Prize finalist “A 24 Decade History…” and is a sought-after dramaturg, ritualist, designer, and consultant.

Instagram

Website

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HATLO

HATLO

HATLO is a queer collaborative artist and theater director based on Duwamish land, commonly known as Seattle. Hatlo applies various generative roles (directing, dramaturgy, writing, performing) to the development of new performance experiments. Hatlo has worked with over a dozen celebrated Northwest performing artists and companies to create world premieres across multiple disciplines. Regular collaborators include Timothy White Eagle, dani tirrell, Keyes Wiley, Shontina Vernon, Rosa Vissers (as PE|Mo), s. lavon trotter and Fox Whitney/Gender Tender. They have developed performance work in collaboration at various residencies including The Orchard Project (NY), High Arts (NYC), Performance Works NW (Portland, OR), Guild Hall (NY), Ferguson Center for the Arts (VA), New Dramatists (NYC), On The Boards and Seattle Repertory Theater (both in Seattle, WA).

Hatlo was nominated for a Gregory New Play Award for their original play STUCK and a Stranger Genius award as part of the creative team for Thatswhatshesaid with Erin Pike and Courtney Meaker. Hatlo was the 2019 Seattle Town Hall Artist-in-Residence, where they facilitated the SOW Queer residency & showcase with 50 local artists. With regular collaborator Timothy White Eagle, Hatlo has toured and performed nationally including On the Boards in Seattle, La Mama ETC in NYC and as part of the Public’s Under the Radar festival.

For the past two years HATLO has been organizing and developing shared movement and artistic work sessions in their community; solo crowd: a movement centered approach for working separately together in shared space and In Habit: a playlist facilitated physical exploration for moving imaginatively together.

@wearyrhatlo

@zazadpm

@dark_wiley

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Juniper Shuey

Juniper Shuey

Born in California, Juniper Shuey is a visual artist based in Seattle, WA, since 1997. Juniper went to Emerson College in Boston, studying set and lighting design for three years. He then transferred to Ceramics at the University of Washington, where the faculty allowed him to develop his art in performance and clay. His work developed into using video projection into space as a sculptural element. Juniper’s work has been published in several art books, including SOIL Artist, Lava, and Fashion is ART. His video installations, photographs, and performances have been shown both nationally and internationally, including in Italy, Budapest, NYC, Houston, Seattle, Portland, and Christchurch, New Zealand. Juniper has participated on several professional art panels, including the New England Foundation for the Arts, The MacArthur Foundation, and a professional practices panel discussion at the University of Washington. In 2004, Juniper received the Curators Choice Award at Tacoma Art Museum’s Northwest Biennial. In 2005, he had his first solo gallery exhibition at Howard House in Seattle, and won the People’s Choice Award at Bellevue Art Museum’s Northwest Biennial.

Juniper was a fellow at The MacDowell Colony in 2010 and won the 2013 Stranger Genius Award for Performance with collaborator Zoe Scofield. In 2005, Zoe Scofield and Juniper Shuey collaborated to create their first stage performance for On the Boards NWNW and formed zoe | juniper. zoe | juniper has toured nationally and internationally, presenting dance, video installation, film, sculpture and photography. Juniper collaborates with glass artist Preston Singletary since 2018 and together they are working on a new project premiering in 2028.

@juniper.shuey

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DB Amorin(he/him)

DB Amorin

he/him

Photo by Blaine Tolentino

DB Amorin (he/him) is an interdisciplinary media artist born in Honolulu, Hawai'i who explores audio-visual non-linearity as a container for intersectional experience. He frequently emphasizes the generative role of error as an opportunity for creation, resulting in media-centered projects driven by DIY methodologies, lo-fi translations, and persistent, inquisitive experimentation with available materials.

His work has garnered awards from esteemed organizations, including the Jersey City Arts Council, Oregon Arts Commission, the Ford Family Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Precipice Fund grant funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Calligram Foundation and administered by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). His visual art, performances, curatorial & collaborative programming have been presented internationally at A4 Arts Foundation; the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival; Onassis Foundation; ICA at MECA&D; Luggage Store Gallery; Soundwave ((7)) Biennial; PICA; Portland Art Museum; the Honolulu Museum of Art; Honolulu Biennial 2019.

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Crystal Cortez(they/them)

Crystal Cortez

they/them

Crystal Cortez (they/them) is a Portland-based sound designer, musician, and creative technologist. Their work spans the realms of installation and performance with a focus on redirecting modern technology toward sacred relationality. They transform field recordings, use synthesis, audio programming, data sonification, and 3D sound spatialization to produce windows into shared networks of reality. Their work has been shown at NIME, La MaMa NYC, PNCA, Disjecta, PICA, Navel (LA), On the Boards (Seattle), Mizaji Gallery, Southern Exposure (SF) and more. In addition to being an artist, they are also an educator and Max MSP Certified Trainer.

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Website

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Olivia Komahcheet(she/her)

Olivia Komahcheet

she/her

Olivia Komahcheet (she/her) is a composer, music producer, and live performer whose work spans within spaces of music, visual media, and immersive art experiences. Collectively intertwining a multitude of soundscapes often integrating alternative/indie, experimental art pop, and indietronica, Olivia has worked with top brands including Instagram, Ableton, Keeley Electronics, Walrus Audio, Sundance, Square Register with original music being heard on Netflix and Shudder TV platforms. Her original music has been married to films screened at the National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian, TIFF Film Festival, and SXSW. Her most recent acclaimed work with Brooks Shoe Company "Run with Respect" short was nominated as a finalist for the 2023 Emmys. She has recently completed her first feature-length film "Without Arrows" documentary in coalition with PBS Broadcast Television Network as a lead composer. Olivia is currently a platinum Producer on Timbaland's "Beatclub" and her touring experience encompasses over 100 live performances throughout the US, Canada and performing virtually alongside Jewel, AWOLNATION, Jason, Mraz, Sia, Mike Posner, and many more.

Instagram

Website

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CREDITS

Co-creator, Lead Artist, Performer: Timothy White Eagle
Co-creator, Director, Dramaturg: Hatlo
Adjuvant: John Kendall Wilson
Lighting Design: Geoff Korf
Production Design: Juniper Shuey
Video Design & Installation: DB Amorin
Sound Design: Crystal Cortez
Live Instruments & Vocals: Olivia Komahcheet
Associate Producer: Pepper Pepper

PRESS

Understanding through ritual · Seattle Dances · Kari Tai · January 9, 2025

Timothy White Eagle’s Radical Rituals Connect Art, History, and Culture · The Evergreen Echo · Nicole Bearden · December 3, 2024

New play ‘Indian School’ reflects Indigenous artist’s personal story · The Seattle Times · Gemma Wilson · November 7, 2024

November Theater Begins To Look A Bit Like Xmas Is On Its Way… · Seattle Gay Scene · Miryam Gordon · November 4, 2024

6 must-see Seattle theater shows in fall 2024 · the Seattle Times · Gemma Wilson · September 3, 2024