Workshop Responses
Before you could understand what Tuma did for me, I think it’s important for you to understand from what world I come. Before I joined Tuma, I had inherent questions about my heritage and place in the universe. I grew up with drinking, drugs, gambling and abuse with a small light of hope and love from my grandparents.
Going to college was my escape from tragedy. My rage propelled me through the White Man and I left my home with many questions my people could not answer for me, like where do my people come from? What are my responsibilities here? What is good and what is bad here? I was traumatized in many ways spiritually and emotionally before I joined Tuma.
When I joined Tuma, I faced some of my greatest fears about why I felt like a sick person. Tuma and Tom Riccio changed me forever. My world began to open. Wrongs toward my people were being acknowledged, the power of the people who once were was being asked for, and it was safe for me to grieve and ask for myself. I was with Tuma for three years, and with every year, I grew. I became empowered, confident, and learned to focus my rage in a different way.
Now I am more expressive and have a deeper understanding of what happened in my people's past and what is happening now and what I can do about it.
Wilma Brown
Tuma Theatre Ensemble, Alaska
The workshop's focus was on reimaginging the performance of ourselves. What I discovered was that such a thing cannot be given a word, a compartment or a 'logical' explanation. What the workshop taught me was that the structure of knowing obstructs our ability to know. What stood out for me most was my need to embrace my own culture. To do so is to embrace elements intrinsic to what we call Western and move in and through them rather than to "cut them out'.
Danielle Ray
Graduate Student, California Institute of Intregal Studies
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