Choreographies in Confinement:
Native American Bodies as Battlegrounds, Institutions as War
My book project, Choreographies in Confinement: Native American Bodies as Battlegrounds, Institutions as War, historically and politically contextualizes dance, student theatrical productions, basketball, Lakota cultural curriculum and ceremony, and yoga at four sites on Lakota lands: a former Indian boarding school (1886-1972); men’s and women’s prisons (1889-Present and 1995-Present); and a tribal juvenile hall (2005-Present). In the book, I theorize how diverse institutions of confinement have sought to manage Indigenous bodies and movement modes, while Native people have enacted practices to sustain, generate, and transmit vital knowledge through their performances and gatherings. Such an approach illuminates Indigenous bodies and movement practices not only as targets, but also as sites of possibility, wellbeing, and survival—even from inside the settler state’s most repressive institutions.
Ledger painting by Mike Marshall created for the book project