INDIGENOUS DIRECTION
Who
Indigenous Direction is owned by two enrolled tribal members and works with you to strategize and brainstorm new ways to envision your project.
Larissa FastHorse
Co-Founder
Larissa FastHorse is a MacArthur Fellow 2020-2015 and multi-award winning playwright and choreographer from the Sicangu Lakota Nation. Two of her commissions will be produced in 2015/16 with Cornerstone Theatre Company and Eagle Project. Other productions include Landless at AlterTheater, Cherokee Family Reunion at Mountainside Theatre NC, Teaching Disco Square Dancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation for Native Voices at the Autry and Average Family for Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis where Larissa is developing her Untitled Ballet Play.
She was awarded the NEA Distinguished Play Award, Aurand Harris Fellowship, AATE Distinguished Play Award, William Inge Residency, the Joe Dowling Annaghmakerrig Fellowship Award and numerous Ford Foundation and NEA Grants as well as being an NEA Theatre Panelist and TCG Board Member. Larissa is represented by Jonathan Mills at Paradigm NY and Britton Rizzio at Writ Large. www.hoganhorsestudio.com
Pronouns: She/Her
Ty Defoe
Co-Founder
TY DEFOE (Giizhig) is from the Oneida and Ojibwe Nations. He is an interdisciplinary-hyphenated artist, activist, writer, cultural worker, and shape-shifter. As a two-spirit person Ty aspires to an integral approach to artistic projects, social justice, indigeneity, and environmentalism. Ty gained recognition in many circles around the world including a Grammy Award. Ty’s global cultural arts highlights are: the Millennium celebration in Cairo, Egypt with the Call for Peace Drum and Dance Company; Turkey for the Ankara International Music Festival, and Festival of World Cultures in Dubai. Ty’s frequents his own community where he learned to hoop dance, eagle dance, and play a variety of wooden flutes. Ty is always a guest artist at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. and NYC. Awards include: NEA/NEFA for reconstructing and indigenizing, Drum is Thunder, Flute is Wind, First American in the Arts Outstanding Performance Award, First Americans in the Arts Scholarship Award, an Indigenous Heritage Festival Award: this award is given to artists who have made a major positive impact on indigenous people and rights of the world, a Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, 2016-2018 Olga J. and G. Roland Denison visiting artist Professorship of Native American Studies at Central Michigan University, 2016-2017 Institute of the American Indian Arts Visiting Artist, 2019 TransLab Fellow, 2017 Jonathan Larson Award winner creating book and lyrics on “Clouds Are Pillows for the Moon (Yale Institute for Musical Theatre; ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop), Hart Island Requiem (The Civilians R&D Group), Red Pine (Native Voices at the Autry; IAIA of Santa Fe), The Way They Lived (Co-collaboration w Micharne Cloughley and The Civilians at the Met Museum), writer and co-director, Ajijaak on Turtle Island (Ibex Puppetry at La MaMa Theater, NYC, Lied Center for the Performing Arts, NE, Chicago International Puppet Festival, First Works R.I., New Victory Theater, NYC), River of Stone. Movement Director of Manahatta (dir. Laurie Woolery) and Mother Road (dir. Bill Rauch) at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ty is a co-founder of Indigenous Direction (w/ Larissa FastHorse). His writing publications can be viewed in the Pitkin Review, Woody Guthrie Anthology, the Thorny Locust Magazine, and Howl Round. He has received degrees from CalArts, Goddard College, NYU’s Tisch. A Theater Communications Group Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Fellow alumni and an artEquity facilitator. He guest appeared on Netflix show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as Young Anthony Black Elk and recently made his Broadway debut in Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men (dir. by Anna Shapiro). Member of Dramatist Guild, Actor’s Equity, SDC, ASCAP, and First Nations Theater Guild. He lives in NYC and loves the color clear. Member of AEA, ASCAP, SDC, and the Dramatist Guild.
All My Relations Collective, allmyrelations.earth | tydefoe.com Pronouns: He/Him/We
C I R C L E of F R I E N D S
Indigneous Direction works in a variety of ways. We make teams of facilitators, artists', thinkers, and innovators for your project.
Jamelyn Ebelacker
Associate Producer/Project Manager/Digital Artist
Santa Clara Pueblo artist, Jamelyn Ebelacker, was born into a generational family of Indigenous creatives. An award-winning traditional Pueblo potter and international digital designer, Jamelyn has been dreaming up art in various mediums since 1991. She received her BFA in New Media Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2015. After graduating, Jamelyn served as a Peace Corps Volunteer on the islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia from 2017-2020, where she was nominated for the prestigious Franklin H. Williams award, which honors Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who exemplify an ongoing commitment to community service. In 2020, she was honored with the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts “Artists Helping Artists!” Fellowship for her work assisting Indigenous elders establish online storefronts in order to continue creating and subsisting off their artwork during the global pandemic. She is a co-founder of RPCV’s March, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer advocacy group, and Ebelacker Family Pottery, and is a member of the Creative & Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA). Jamelyn is currently working with community arts and theatre company DNAWORKS to produce Fort Worth Lynching Tour: Honoring the Memory of Mr. Fred Rouse, an ongoing racial justice project in Texas. Jamelyn is also a producer for Live in America, an international cultural performing arts festival premiering in 2021 in conjunction with Fusebox Festival and The Momentary/Crystal Bridges.
www.ebelackerfamilypottery.com | Pronouns: She/Her
Jenny Marlowe
Editor, brain-trust, artist/activist
Jenny Marlowe is an actor, playwright, educator, and community activist. She is a passionate advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts with a particular focus on rights, recognition, and representation for Indigenous people in media and popular culture. Jenny is a member of Emerging Arts Leaders/Los Angeles’ Leadership Council, of Actors' Equity Association's National EEO Committee, of SAG-AFTRA’s L.A. Local EEO Committee, and of Cornerstone Theater Company’s Community Council. She is a 2018 Arts for LA Delegate and a graduate of artEquity’s Facilitator Training program, and is currently the Program Assistant at the Center for Cultural Innovation. Jenny has performed at theaters all over the country, including ArtsEmerson, Perseverance Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Cornerstone Theater Company, A Noise Within, the La Jolla Playhouse, and Native Voices at the Autry, where she is a member of the resident ensemble. She has appeared on television on ABC’s ‘Modern Family’ and as Tongva rebel Toypurina in ‘Variedades on Olvera Street’ for KCET. Her own plays have been workshopped and showcased by Centre Stage South Carolina, Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga, and the Southwark Playhouse London. But she is perhaps best known for a series of viral videos about Native Americans in popular culture that she made in collaboration with BuzzFeed. With more than 25 million views, the videos have been featured in multiple national and international media outlets and are currently included in college curricula at universities all over the U.S. and Canada. Jenny is a graduate of Princeton University, Kings College London, and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she earned a double Master’s degree in Text & Performance Studies and a professional certificate in Shakespeare. Originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, she currently resides in Los Angeles. Jenny is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA, and British Equity and is represented by Stein Entertainment.
Pronouns: She/Her