Reinventing Traditional Alaska Native Performance vividly demonstrates the capacity of human beings, whomever they are, to cross over the gap that unfortunately exists between people. The author, Thomas Riccio, though the mechanism of theatre, has cleverly built a bridge between differing worldviews, and he has done it well.

This kind of bridging is magical and sometimes mystical, which is appropriate for the Alaska native cultures and the art of performance. Crossing this bridge the fog below clears and we get a glimpse of the cognitive landscape of the Yup'ik and Inupiat mind. Standing on this bridge we can hear the resonance of my ancestral drums and begin to see how traditional performance--expressed through storytelling, dancing, drumming and singing-- form not only an integrated, place specific performance, but holistic way of seeing the world.

Being a Yup'ik Eskimo and having been born and immersed in Yupiaq verbal and performance art, I have personally experienced and appreciate the bridge presented by this book.

George Charles (Kanaqlak)

from the preface: Reinventing Traditional Alaska Native Performance