Muriel Miguel: A Retrospective
Join the Library and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies on Monday, September 23, 2019 at 7 p.m. in Martinos Auditorium at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts for Muriel Miguel: A Retrospective, the 15th Annual Don Wilmeth Endowed Lectureship in American Theatre.
Founder and Artistic Director of New York City’s Spiderwoman Theater, Muriel Miguel will share the fascinating journey from her roots in Brooklyn to her landmark contributions to the contemporary feminist and Indigenous theatre movements in the United States, Canada and around the world. Experience her extraordinary life through stories, photos and video from the last 60 years.
This event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required. A light reception will follow the talk.
Muriel Miguel
Muriel Miguel (Kuna/Rappahannock) is a founding member and Artistic Director of Spiderwoman Theater, the longest running feminist Native American theater company in North America. She has directed and co-written almost all of Spiderwoman’s shows since their first show, Women in Violence in 1976. They have produced over twenty original works for the theatre.
Muriel is a 2018 Doris Duke artist and in 2016, was a John S Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. She has received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Miami University in Oxford, OH, home of the Native American Women Playwrights Archives. She was awarded a Rauschenberg Residency in 2015 and is a member of the National Theater Conference and the Southeastern Theatre Conference where she received the 2019 Distinguished Career Award.
Muriel studied modern dance with Alwin Nickolai, Erick Hawkins and Jean Erdman. She was an original member of Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theater where she performed in the groundbreaking works: Terminal, The Serpent, Mere Ubu and Viet Rock.
She is a choreographer, director, and actor. She has choreographed Throw Away Kids and She Knew She Was She for the Aboriginal Dance Program at the Banff Centre. She directed Spiderwoman Theater’s Material Witness; The Scrubbing Project with Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble and Evening in Paris with Raven Spirit Dance Company. She has been a dramaturge with Native Earth Performing Arts’ annual Weesageechak Begins to Dance Festival. As an actor, she was the Mary Deity in the off-Broadway hit, Taylor Mac’s Lily’s Revenge. She created the role of Philomena Moosetail in The Rez Sisters, by Tomson Highway, a play that is a seminal work in the development of a First Nations play repertory in Canada. She played Aunt Shadie in The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Marie Clements and Spirit Woman in BONES: An Aboriginal Dance Opera. She has created one woman shows Hot’ N’ Soft, Trail of the Otter, and, most recently, Red Mother. Her latest project is Misdemeanor Dream, which explores the real and the fantastical existence of Native and First Nations tricksters and spirits in the stories, languages and lives of Indigenous people.
She was selected for the Native and Hawaiian Women of Hope poster by Bread and Roses International Union’s Bread and Roses Center and in 2003 was the recipient of the first Lipinsky Residency (feminist-inresidence) at San Diego State University Women’s Studies Department. She has received many awards as a member of Spiderwoman Theater. The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of the American Indian presented a retrospective exhibit, New Tribe, New York honoring Spiderwoman Theater’s years of work; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art and the Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre. Spiderwoman Theater received the first Honoring the Spirit Award for Arts and Entertainment from the American Indian Community House.
Muriel was an Assistant Professor of Drama at Bard College. She taught and directed a yearly production at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre (CIT) was Program Director for CIT’s three week summer intensive. She is a pioneer in the development of an Indigenous performance methodology and is active in the training of Indigenous actors and dancers in this culturally based method. She was a Program Director for the Aboriginal Dance Program at The Banff Centre and an instructor there for seven years. Muriel has lectured with Muriel Miguel: A Retrospective and facilitated Storyweaving Workshops in conservatories and universities in the US, Canada and Europe.
Her work has been profiled in numerous articles and essays. The most notable of these are Women in Love: Portraits of Lesbian Mothers and their Families by Barbara Seyda and Diana Herrera and American Women Stage Directors of the 20th Century by Anne Fliotsos and Wendy Vierow. Plays Published: TRAIL OF THE OTTER in Staging Coyote’s Dream: An Anthology of First Nations Drama in English Vol. II & HOT ‘N’ SOFT in Two-Spirit Acts: Queer Indigenous Performances- Playwright’s Canada Press. Publications of Spiderwoman Theater plays: PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY in Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women’s Thetare -Miami University Press; WINNETOU’S SNAKE OIL SHOW FROM WIGWAM CITY in Keepers of the Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women’s Theater -UCLA American Indian Studies Centre and REVERB-BER-BER-RATIONS in Staging Coyote’s Dream: An Anthology of First Nations Drama in English -Playwright’s Canada Press.
Don Wilmeth
Don Wilmeth joined the Brown English and Theatre faculty in 1967. He retired as Asa Messer Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus of Theatre, Speech and Dance, and Professor Emeritus of English in 2004. The first endowed Wilmeth Lecture was presented in 2005.
Accessibility
To request special services, accommodations, or assistance for this event, please contact Jennifer Braga at [email protected] or (401) 863-6913 as far in advance of the event as possible. Thank you.
Date: Monday, September 23, 2019
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, 154 Angell Street, Providence, RI 02912