PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Murielle Borst Tarrant, Artistic Director of Safe Harbors NYC
1:43:01
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5 min
Murielle Borst Tarrant, Artistic Director of Safe Harbors NYC, testified about the need for greater support and recognition of Native American theater and performing arts in New York City. She emphasized the importance of acknowledging the various indigenous nations in and around Manhattan, and called for the establishment of a dedicated Native theater to showcase indigenous stories and culture.
- Highlighted the lack of representation of Native theater in New York City and on Broadway
- Urged the council to consider funding for Safe Harbors NYC to create a regional theater for Native performances and programming
- Stressed the importance of moving beyond land acknowledgments to actual programming and representation in the theater ecosystem
Murielle Borst Tarrant
1:43:01
Good morning, council.
1:43:04
Thank you very much for having us here, for this opportunity to speak on behalf of our organizations and our communities.
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My name is Muriel Borst Tarrant.
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I'm from the Koon and Rappahannock Nations.
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I am the artistic director of Safe Harbors, New York City.
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I am the former chairwoman of North America for the Indigenous Caucus, for Women's Issues.
1:43:28
I'm also the former, representative to North America, special assistant to, the, for the Indigenous Council and I work directly with the, the Council of Chiefs of the Hettedishaunee Nation.
1:43:44
I am also the daughter of Muriel Miguel of Spider Woman Theater, and I am the former associate director of that organization.
1:43:54
I, advise on many different theaters, and I also advise, with the Perlman who we've just discussed earlier.
1:44:05
Before I go any further, I would just like to acknowledge a little bit about what this community is, here in New York City.
1:44:12
I and like, many of my colleagues here, 2 of us we are lifelong members of the New York City community.
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Some of our tribes do not come from this area.
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But my family has been here since 1800.
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And not only that, my husband was the former executive director of the American Indian Community House, who is now deceased who died of COVID, 4 years ago.
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What I would like to say with that is that there's many community leaders who are here who do not come from tribes from this area, who have given their, life flow and their blood for this community.
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I would also like to acknowledge that in the surrounding areas of Manhattan particularly, there are different tribes who are in the surrounding areas that we need to acknowledge.
1:45:02
We need to acknowledge the Shinnecock Nation, the Matinnecock Nation, the, the Unkacchunk Nation and we should also acknowledge the Hetishone Confederacy.
1:45:12
These are all surrounding nations around the island of Manhattan.
1:45:16
And I think it's also, we have to remember here that there is a lot of work to be done, when it comes to the form of theater.
1:45:24
I'm a theater maker and I work in, in, you know, I work in theatre.
1:45:30
And that's what I do.
1:45:33
The, well, I would just also like to say that I'm trying to, that Safe Harbors New York City is an arts initiative that focuses on the development of production of indigenous performing arts in New York City.
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We seek to build an understanding of Native American mythologies and performance that in turn will function as cultural liaison to non native theater artists in the city.
1:45:55
The more successful we are in engaging these populations, the closer we hope to be to creating truly cross cultural lines of communication.
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Our mission, Safe Harbor, focuses on the development native theater and performing arts in New York City within the broader American theater.
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We combat stereotypes and support vibrant native communities.
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We develop ongoing dialogue with policy makers about the approach to cultural and social economic issues using theatrical performances, performing arts, native cultural consultancy, panel discussions, and cultural events.
1:46:31
I would just like to say that we just came back from a conference that we just hosted at Brown University and we wanted to talk about the ecosystem of Native theater in New York.
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What we found is we gathered over 20 theaters.
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And one of those discussions is other than land acknowledgment, which we are very appreciative of, But other than land acknowledgment, we need to look at programming for Native theater for theaters.
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And so we are not, for lack of a better word, ghetto sizing what where we're at.
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So we have, you know, we have Latino Commons, we have, the Black American Theater.
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And what we really need in New York City is a regional theater to represent our work.
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We are hoping, and I urge this council, and I urge the City of New York, especially during this next economic crisis that will be coming up in the further years, that we're hoping that we can get funds for safe harbors New York City so we're able to have a theater and figure out how a native theater can happen so we can have programmings, so we can have other tribes that are coming in, that we can have the Lenny Lenape Muncie come in, and they can have discussions and panel discussions.
1:47:44
So there's a place that we can do theater.
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If you look at the, Dramatists Guild, we see when there was a report that came out, our percentage of what is being produced, not only in New York City, but across the United States.
1:47:59
We don't even hit the mark of the percentages.
1:48:02
And that is because we need to start to have programming on how Native theater is being looked at.
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If you look at Broadway right now, there's not we had one Native show that was on Broadway, which is Larissa Fast Horse.
1:48:16
It was a Thanksgiving play.
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We need to look at how do we change that.
1:48:20
We understand that there is a great apology that needs to be made to native people in a whole in the United States.
1:48:29
But I'm talking about storytelling that comes from our traditional ways of thinking and how do we go further with that.
1:48:36
I urge this council to think about that and I thank you for your time.
