AMERICAN THREADS
The land is speaking…
Let’s put our ears to the ground…
The land holds so many stories. She carries, like layers of sediment, generations upon generations of our stories. Those who have been born and lived and died— their triumphs, follies, graces and mediocrities— all recorded in the body of the Earth, without partiality.
Tularosa: An American Dreamtime is a story-work, multidisciplinary in approach, whose aim is to excavate some of the stories– past, present, ancient future– of the mysterious and complex region known as the Tularosa Basin, and by doing so search out a deeper truth about what it is to call oneself “American”. This relatively small strip of land is a seeming vortex of American desire and violence, where countless human threads have crossed and struggled and woven their stories into its soil. There isn’t one square inch of the land that the Lenni Lenape call Turtle Island, and that we’ve only recently begun to call “America,” that is any different.
The Tularosa Basin has been fought over for centuries– first by the indigenous, First Peoples defending against invading Spanish conquistadors and consequent Mexican farmers who tried to settle it; then by ranchers whose cattle overgrazed, causing erosion and desertification; then by railroad capitalists and the throngs they facilitated in the American westward colonization. Now, a great deal of this land is home to the White Sands Missile Range, a U.S. Army military testing area and firing range, where the fated first nuclear explosion took place in 1945.
What is it about this place that has made so many hunger to possess it? Perhaps it is the American Way, born of imposter mythologies seeded in patriarchy and domination and colonization, resulting in beliefs in Individuality, Winning, Manifest Destiny, i.e. the American Dream– leading to trauma, ecological harm, genocide, existential threat.
Nowhere are these mythologies distilled and propagated more potently than in our mythologized memory of the American West. In this ongoing story-work, we are reimagining Tularosa as the epicenter of an American Dreamtime, where the living Earth takes American mythology to die and be reborn. Join us?
THE PEOPLE
This work is a continuously evolving community endeavor. SO MANY people have woven and continue to weave their stories and creative energies into the ever-unfolding iterations of Tularosa: An American Dreamtime:
Lead Artist
Kamara Thomas
Band of Toughs - Theater Activations and Performance Development
Colleen Mylott - Artistic Director, Janet Mylott, Michael Sater, David Ortolano, Joan Bruemmer, Michael Gunst, Bryn Waugh, Anna Strzepek, Kate Moore
Videography, Archival Footage & Editing
Jim Haverkamp, Anaid Garcia, Doza
Music
Luis Rodriguez, Steve Anderson, Sarah Dawson, Molly Sarlé, Saman Khoujinian, Gabe Anderson, Gabrielle Hooper, Jimmy Waltman, Timothy Shearer, Gordon Hartin, Nathan Golub, Rissi Palmer, Tamisha Waden, Shana Tucker, Katie DeConto, James Wallace, Joe MacPhail, Robert Sledge, Anissa Weinraub
Photography
Leilani Hill, Matt Shallenberger
Dance
Aya Shabu, Nicola Bullock, Austin Dixon
Visual Art
Debra Wuliger (Archetype Panels), Denise Padilla de Font, Clyde Hill Himmelstein, David Font-Navarro, Chelsea Aachen, Susie Crooks, Ann Thaden, Nathan Golub, Tom Dawson
Community Participants
Lewis Hill, Doza, Calixte Raifsneider, Laurą Yu Hu, Marek Montoya, Megan Bowser, Fiona Dawson, Sarah Dawson, Angel Dozier, Amy Godfrey, Cherokee Hartin, Isis Hartin, Kari Hill, Luna Padilla-Font, Aya Shabu, Funmi Shabu, Nnedinma Umeadi, Joyce Ventimiglia, Sofia Ventimiglia, Dale Wolf, Meg Stein, Jessica Almy-Pagan
SPECIAL THANKS:
Mary O’Connor, Elaine Milan, Joseph Arnold, Steve Runk, Tracy Patterson, Jaclyn Sweet, Marjorie Carhart, Danielle Dennis, MAP Fund, Whippoorwill Arts