• International Indigenous Artist Residency

• Native Community Workshop

• Multi-media Performance

• Artist Talk

WIND is an intercultural Indigenous performance project centering the process of creation, connection to the land and the sharing of stories. For millennia, Native peoples from so-called Canada to so-called Argentina, have traveled, traded and intermarried. International intertribal sharing is an ancient way. Breaking this connection and silencing the stories have been foundational to colonial policies in the Americas. Though some of this interchange has been disrupted due to genocide, the memory of vibrant cultural exchange is still there. And though the elements of earth, water and fire can be bound and contained by imposed settler colonial borders, the wind cannot. It travels along the old routes and reminds us of our connections. Through this project the artists seek to fight against these colonial forces by harnessing the spirit of the wind to boldly gather and freely create from shared dreaming. 

Over the course of several months, artsists Amado Espinoza (Qhichwa), Maura García (non-enrolled Cherokee/ Mattamuskeet), and Yura Sapi (Kichwa) will work together, virtually and in-person, to collectively devise a multi-media performance offering. The focus of their inquiry will be the element of wind:

Underneath the pavement of the city, Kansas City is prairie land. Unlike the grasses which struggle to exist anymore, the wind doesn’t care about the buildings or cars or people. It is still wild and untamed and forever invisible. It is fast and carries words, sounds, and prayers throughout the whole world. It is ever present in the form of air. Without it we are dead in a matter of minutes. And yet, we cannot see it. We feel its presence or gauge its movement and patterns by the way it moves other objects. Wind in the form of a tornado can destroy an entire house, yet leave a cabinet full of delicate ceramics untouched. It caresses our skin and it brings down trees. It is magic. 

Traveling from Cochabamba, Bolivia, Houston, TX, and New York City, the artists will converge in Kansas City for an international creative residency and to share two events: a workshop for the local Indigenous communities and a multimedia performance that is open to the public: 

• Interactive Community Workshop & Indigenous Foods Feast: Feb. 22, 2025, 11am - 3pm

Hosted at the Kansas City Indian Center (KCIC), this workshop invites KCIC members and the local Indigenous community to engage in creating music, choreography, and narrative storytelling. Activities will include instrument-making, dance learning, singing, and collaborative story creation.

• Multimedia Performance & Artist Talk: Feb. 23, 2025 at 2pm 

The performance will debut in the Auditorium at the Woodneath Library Center. This free, public event will feature dance, song, textile art, and storytelling. Immediately following the performance, there will be an artist talk facilitated by Osage author Jimmy Lee Beason II. Afterwards, there will be refreshments in the lobby provided by Indigenous-owned coffee shop, Cafe Corazon. The Woodneath Library Center campus features plantings of grasses and wildflowers native to the prairie ecosystem that once covered much of the greater Kansas City region. The artists invite people to arrive at the campus early to walk the trails and experience the interaction between the prairie landscape and prairie wind.