¡Colores!; 101; Naomi Natale, Rulan Tangen, Ian Ruhter

>>Narrator: THIS TIME, ON COLORES! SOCIAL ARTS PRACTITIONER NAOMI NATALE OF ONE MILLION BONES CONFRONTS THE GLOBAL ISSUE OF GENOCIDE. >>"To move forward with this understanding and this respect that if we belong to each other then we're responsible to one another." >>Narrator: FOUNDER OF SANTA FE'S INNOVATIVE DANCING EARTH CREATIONS, CHOREOGRAPHER AND DANCER, RULAN TANGEN, SHARES HER VISION. >>"I love that in dance you can become a snow storm, you can become an ancient ancestor, you can become so many different things, you are not limited." >>: Narrator: PHOTOGRAPHER AND ALCHEMIST, IAN RUHTER, TRAVELS IN A TRUCK THAT IS ALSO HIS CAMERA INSPIRED BY A 19TH CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS. HE SHARES HIS EXPERIENCE PHOTOGRAPHING NEW MEXICO. >> "When we're shooting out in the elements, just a little bit of wind will shake the camera. Nature creates all the beauty but it also gives us the most adversity." >>Narrator: IT'S

ALL AHEAD ON COLORES >>Narrator: ARTIST NAOMI NATALE USES THE SYMBOL OF THE HUMAN BONE TO REPRESENT HOW WE BELONG TO EACHOTHER. In 1996, that's when I lost my father. And then in 1998 I lost my brother, and then my two nephews, and friends, neighbors, pastors, you know. I knew all those people that got killed that same night. >>Hakim: Talk to me >>Hakim: Talk to me

about your moment of awareness. When did you realize change was necessary, however you define change? >> NAOMI NATALE: In 2002 I traveled to Kenya as a photographer to photo-document orphan children living in slums and tribal reserves and it was life changing. I met some of 5the most beautiful and amazing people in some of the most challenging situations. And coming back and trying to process that experience and later translate that experience to people living in my community was something that I felt was really important. >>Hakim: That translation process, you said how you translate that to your community, that led to Cradle project. So briefly can you tell me a little about that and how that led you to One Million Bones? >>NATALE: It took me a couple of years after going to Kenya and having some other experiences and tokind of decide or understand that there was a place to work at this intersection of art

and activism. The project that I had come up with to directly address that experience was called the Cradle Project and that was a call to artists all over the world to create a representation of a empty cradle that would represent the lost potential of our orphaned children. At that time in 2006 when it was launched there were 48 million children orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa. And so it was a way to think about wrapping your head around what was actually happening and that participation process, you know, what it means to have that many empty cradles. One of the things thatwe didn't know going into was this understanding of how much that experience and that participationopened people up and engaged them in that issue. How do we get from 550 cradles in Albuquerque to one million bones on the national mall? I did imagine those million bones on the national mall

while doing the cradle project so I had that idea in my mind. Did I understand what it would take? Certainly not. There was a book called "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families". It written by Phillip Gorovich it's about the Rwandan genocide that happened in 1994 were over 800,000 people were killed in 90s in a country the size of Rhode Island. Everything about that genocide is inconceivable to really understand. If those bones of the people who had been murdered in Rwanda had been piled up on the streets of DC would we be brave enough to call it a genocide? Would we have been brave enough to act? And I pictured that visual. We are so fortunate to not see mass graves in our country. You know,

of ongoing conflicts. These mass graves are being built in countries around the world and we did make a promise to the Geneva Convention, actually we signed in a international law that we would be responsible to take action if genocide ever happened again and it has happened again and we have failed on that law. >>Hakim: What does each bone represent? What do they represent to you? >>NATALE: Yeah, the symbol of the bone was used to test the gravity of the issue but more significantly it is meant to remind us that we belong to each other. To move forward with this understanding and respect, that if you belong to each other then we're responsible to one another and what does that responsibility mean? The thing that I have is not about revenge; it's not about that. So if we have to think of revenge then this

is not a solution. All we need is forgiveness and thinking of the future like what do we need as the Congolese. So our kids, our younger brothers, our brothers, the new generation will not gothrough what we've been through. I mean you really don't do something, until you know something. Than that's what One Million Bones so people know what is going on in Congo and Sudan and Ghana and other countries. Keep talking about it like the message can keep going so people can do something about it. >>Hakim: As an artist there are lots

of ways that we can address issues, what made you choose One Million Bones?. >>NATALE: You know the image of a million bones; I guess that installation came to me as an image first. The participatory factor, it's a social arts practice as well and it's the experience that a participant goes though that also is a part of the art. And you know for every bone that was on the mall, there was a story behind it. It was about over three years of work leading up to that; every conversation, every classroom that we went in, and conversation that was had in those classrooms, in those communities with artists, with activists, with whoever to elected officials that really was whatthat work was about. >>Hakim: What do you think the duty of the artist is? >>NATALE: about. >>Hakim: What do

you think the duty of the artist is? >>NATALE: You know that is such an open question, that is such an interesting question because I don't think the world has to be any more or less of than what an individual who considers themselves anartist wants to produce with their art. I am interested in this intersection and the art world wouldn't consider what we do art. We know it is art so we'll move forward and we'll always consider these projects and these installations however the form that comes out is as art but that is a hard question so I'll leave it to others to decide what they want >>Narrator: DANCER RULAN TANGEN SHARES THE INSPIRATION AND VISION SHE FINDS IN HER CULTURAL HISTORY AND THE URGENCY OF CONTEMPORARY ISSUES >>Hakim: Rulan Tangen, choreographer,

dancer, director, many things but most importantly an artist. Why dance to tell your story? Why dance to change the world? >>Tangen: I think there's a theme about transformation like finding broken things or lost things or old things and turning them into something beautiful I think was my initial inspiration. It's almostin response to maybe the environments of challenge and chaos and looking for how to create beauty there. I still love making things, but there's a point at which I wanted to be inside of it, to embody it. >>Hakim: So what makes you tomorrow and the day after that to continue to use that as your mechanismto not just change the world but change us, the people around you? >>Tangen: About 10 years ago I had a huge health struggle, kind of life or death battle and I actually lost my entire physicality.

At that time I had a lot of visions and dreaming so I had a way of seeing and understanding the world that I wanted to translate into life. Because I was in such a diminished physical form at the time I had to trace it onto other bodies and that's actually choreography. >>Tangen: Our indigenous world is so storied, everything is symbolic and I'm very attracted to that in many different cultural forms. Symbolism, archetype, and just the fact that everything has a story. To be able to express those stories in a non linear, non narrative fashion, to go to the essence of the story and become it. What I have is not to serve myself and my ego, it is to serve to strengthen communities

by remembering, reviving, reinterpreting these stories, making them available to people to experience. So that theme of transformation that I spoke about can also take the form of renewal. In dance you can become a snowstorm, you can become an ancestor, you can become so many different things, you're not limited. >>Hakim: It's interpreted and dance is a language in an of itself. >>Tangen: Absolutely. >>Hakim: You do a lot of work about dance and the environment. What's the conversation there, what'sthe dialogue there? >>Hakim Tangen, What is the role of dance in our society, what is the purpose? What has it been in ancient societies? In my understanding is that is a functional ritual. What is it that we have the duty to speak about to create messages around, so that there's a purpose for it >>Tangen: I think that

the issues of the time that are most resonant with me are about our environment. I think partly because of the illness that I faced as a fairly young woman, that there might be reasons in the environment that are causing a lot of illnesses for a lot of people. Different levelsof illnesses and so this idea of healing, personal, social, community, and environmental transformation is an impetus to my work. >>Hakim: You spoke in an earlier question about dreams and I like that and I want to connect that visual of dreams and creation especially to the mythology that is often cited in your work. Talk a little bit about cultural connection to the mythology in your work.

>>Tangen: Sure, there's a great quote but Joseph Campbell who cited that the history and philosophies of other people are mythology and I totally resonate with that in that I think of mythology as history and that every culture has it. And you might think that oh that culture has beautiful mythologybut for example in many of our Native American stories there is core information about our world for example about coming down from the stars in some stories. And now science and DNA catches up and they are able to say all of life on earth all of matter comes from carbon which is at the heart of dying stars and I'm like yep, there's stories about that. That's certainly what inspires me as well tosort of take these stories and translate them into movement so that these really important information about how to live on earth can be sustained. >>Hakim:

You have been able to bring your philosophy of your work to some of the things you've done for film. Apocalypto, New World you spoke a little about the decolonization of the body in that experience. Could you share a little bit about that with us? >>Tangen: Well that sort of brings us to the brief history of contemporary indigenous theater and dance. So there's a few people who have been pioneering this since the 60s or 70s and the civil rightsera and there's threads that I connect with through some of those innovators. For example, in Canada around that time the great playwright Thomson Highway and his dancer brother Rene Highway who ended up being collaborators with Robert Trujillo and all these people who I know them, they're mentors and

the premise that they had and that I had separately is how can we look at theater and dance and create from an indigenous place which is decolonized in the sense that we do not have to bring in Western theater conventions unless we choose to. If we want to be in a four square space with bright lighting we can, but we can also question how can we indigenize these elements. I didn't know until recently that native theater had existed in theater form. Actually in the northwest they had log houses with long tubes of logs with fire going through that created very sophisticated lighting for operas that lasted maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe the entire winter. So I look at decolonizing the theater

practice and also decolonizing the body because a lot that society has told us about bodies that is not appropriate. What I really love is dance being an education and a liberation and I thank you for being part of that and I thank you for being here with us today. >> Hakim: Tangen: Thank you >>Narrator: PHOTOGRAPHER IAN RUHTER USES THE 19TH CENTURY COLLODIAN PROCESS AND TRAVELS ACROSS AMERICA IN A TRUCK THAT SERVES AS HIS CAMERA. >>Ruhter: Photography is a passport to the world. This truck has opened up so many doors, and has allowed me to meet so many people. It is like a big magnet and it brings stories to you. It also gives you an excuse to travel and see the world The minute

I stepped in here it all made sense. Its like, oh of course you built a camera that would see the world up side down and backwards. It really made sense. Up side down is one thing but the backwardness I really understand that because I am dyslexic and it's a part of my learning disability or what ever they call it, but it is how Isee the world. The pictures that I really like are the ones that make you feel. They are not so much pretty colors or something over the top. They are something that make you feel. Make you feel sad or happy or certain emotion and you don't really know why but you have that connection with it. Why I chose the wet plate? I think it was out of necessity, because I had

been working in the digital medium for a while. T hey didn't get rid of all the film but Kodak and Fuji and these companies started going out of business and discontinuing film and a piece of me got discontinued at that point. When I learned about wet plate, I learned that I could make my own film. At that point no one could ever take that away from me. It is interesting with photography I'll literally dream about photos and see them in my head. As I am driving down the road its almost like deja, where I am like I've seen that before or this strikes something in me. That's what I want to photograph. When we are shooting out in the elements. Just a little bit of wind will shake the camera. Nature creates all the beauty but it also gives us the most adversity and challenges. You have to bepatient. That's the big lesson in photography, being patient. When we travel to a new place, what I like

to do is just look at it. Sit there for a couple of days until you can kind of feel it. I think it could take years even, but we don't have so much time. Before you go out and start shooting, you just need to sit there and feel it. Feel the dry desert air blow across you and your lips get dry. Once you feel that you can go out andcapture it or absorb it.This one actually worked out fairly easy. I had looked at it for over a week and had it figured out, we just had to wait on the wind to stop. We showed up at the right time and it worked.If I ever space travel, honestly, this image I felt like I was on Mars. I live in the Sierra Nevada

Mountains where there are all these famous spots, but I've never seen anything water. The tree is half dead, but it is also half alive and it will probablybe like that for a long time. That one really struck something in me that shows how powerful life is and the will to survive and live. This house really drew me in because it is kind

of like a broken dream. I'm sure someone at one point lived there and had a farm. As time went by it didn't work out. How I make the plates: sure someone at one point lived there and had a farm. As time went by it didn't work out. How I make the plates: I sit somewhere in here. We pour the film on top of this plate. The film has iodized salts in it. Pour it onto the plate and float it

back and forth to get it on evenly. Then from there, it goes into our silver tank. Silver crystals mix with the iodize and makes asilver halogen. That's what makes the plates so reflective. We put the plate on the focusing board and open the lens and expose it to light. Those are the really important components of it, and then you just develop it like traditional black and white photos. New Mexico fits into our process in the west because it reminds me of this pioneer spirit. It has vast open spaces and ruggedness and a do it yourself attitude. You're out there. The men and women that went out there

to do this photography in the 1800's they had that spirit. That was something that I missed in photography over the years. It kind of went away.I'm not sure if I found photography or it found me, but I know that it is an important piece of who I am. The people we meet, I ask questions and end up learning stuff about myself. You find out you are not alone. You're not the only one that feels a certain way or looks at the world that way. What inspires me to continue is the thought of having a dream. I think that everyone has dreams, and that is one thing that connect us all as a human race. Without dreams you wouldn't have a reason to get up in the morning. You wouldn't have a purpose or something to go forward towards. Dreams are really