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Mináǧi Kiŋ Dowáŋ: A Zitkála-Šá Opera
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Mináǧi Kiŋ Dowáŋ: A Zitkála-Šá Opera (“My Spirit Sings” in Dakota) is an original film written, composed and sung by an all-Indigenous team. It recently marked its Mni Sota Makoce debut at Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center in St. Paul and now travels north.
The work originated in conversations between Kelly M. Turpin, executive director/producer of An Opera Theatre, and director/artistic producer Sequoia Hauck (Anishinaabe, Hupa). Their shared interest in the Indigenous writer, musician, educator and political activist Zitkála-Šá, a Dakota woman born in 1876 on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota, resulted in this multimedia opera that honors her life and legacy.
Not widely known today, Zitkála-Šá (pronounced: Zeet-KA-la-sha) was highly influential during her lifetime as an artist and activist who was a published writer, performed in the Oval Office in 1900, premiered an opera in 1913, and co-founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926.
In addition to the opera, a documentary “in the making” series is being created in tandem with the production in order to share what decolonizing the process of a Eurocentric art form can look like. The series is created by Hauck, who specializes in documentary filmmaking. Episodes 1-3 can be found at anoperatheatre.org.
