Emily Johnson’s Being Future Being comes to New York Live Arts October 20-22
Who: Emily Johnson/Catalyst
What: Being Future Being
Where: New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th St., 212-727-7476
When: Land/Celestial: October 15, $10-$30, 3:00 & 5:00; Inside/Outwards: October 20-23, $15-$40, 7:30
Why: In a July 2021 illustrated lecture to students at the Bates Dance Festival in Maine, where she was presenting the outdoor section of her work in progress Being Future Being, maker, gatherer, and protector Emily Johnson (Yup’ik) said, “We spent a lot of time in class earlier today thinking of the ground lifting up with us and also thinking about how we are always in relationship to the ground and thinking about ways in which we might be in better ongoing relationship with ground, with land, with water, with air, with relations. And from that I want to say that one day, the civil rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples will be recognized in relation to land, and that power imbalance and extraction will not be the default relationship in our working lives, and that theft of and abuses on and lack of recognition of Indigenous land and water and peoples will not be tolerated. And that’s the kind of future I look forward to making with all of you; that’s the kind of future I enjoy being in already with all of you.”
In such participatory works as Then a Cunning Voice and a Night We Spend Gazing at Stars, Shore, and The Ways We Love and the Ways We Love Better — Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s) in addition to her Kinstillatory Mappings series outside Abrons Arts Center, Johnson, a Bessie Award-winning dancer, choreographer, curator, writer, and social justice activist, brings people together with the land and its history, taking on power imbalance and extraction by forming communities organized around the local environment.
Emily Johnson gathers people together for The Ways We Love and the Ways We Love Better — Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s) in September 2020 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Johnson’s Being Future Being: Inside/Outwards will hold its Lenapehoking premiere October 20-22 at New York Live Arts, featuring a commissioned score by composer Raven Chacon (Navajo), sound by Chloe Alexandra Thompson (Cree), visual design by Holly Mititquq Nordlum (Iñupiaq), masks and wearables by IV Castellanos (mx Indige Quechua/Guaraní), Quilt-Beings by Korina Emmerich (Coast Salish Territory, Puyallup tribe), quilts by Maggie Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe), costumes by Raphael Regan (Sisseton-Wahpeton Eastern Band of Cherokee and Diné), scenic fabrication by Joseph Silovsky, and lighting by Itohan Edoloyi. The piece will be performed by Ashley Pierre-Louis, Jasmine Shorty (Diné), Stacy Lynn Smith, and Sugar Vendil.
In addition, on October 15 there will be a special offsite performance, Land/Celestial, in Lower Manhattan; ticket holders will be advised of the specific location that day. As a whole, the creation of Being Future Being has involved four groups of collaborators, which Johnson refers to as the Branch of Knowledge, the Branch of Scholarship, the Branch of Making, and the Branch of Action. Johnson will be joined by individuals from the four branches at a Stay Late discussion following the October 21 show.
“The work asks audiences to join in community processes that move from each presentation out into the world in what I call the Speculative Architecture of the Overflow, with actions that directly support local rematriative, protection, and Land Back efforts,” Johnson explains on her website. “The Overflow is resonance, moving in the in-between, in-the-collective, in-the-invitation to GATHER HERE. Can the Overflow become supported, beyond the moment of the performance gathering, a speculative architecture resisting BUILD, but living, ongoing in an otherwise?” Johnson always asks intriguing, important questions, but the ultimate answers will have to come from each one of us.