"Let me try to stimulate your imagination. There are 512 or so Indian tribes in the United States today. If each one were to establish and sponsor its own theater company, and produce just one new work based on its history, culture, and heritage, we would have 512 new works for the theater. And if only half of them were to do this - in some fantastical dream-come-true - then there would be 256 new Indian plays. The theater can help us in so many good ways. Theater is one of the most accessible of the performing arts, and we should begin immediately to create new Indian theaters."
- Hanay Geiogamah
(Kiowa/Delaware), Director, Project HOOP
About
Us: Project HOOP
Project
HOOP, as its name suggests, is a national, multi-disciplinary initiative
to advance Native theater artistically, academically, and professionally.
Project HOOP, originally funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation,
is currently funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund
for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), and seeks
to establish and develop academic and artistic programs in the
field of Native theater. The purpose and overarching goal of Project
Hoop is to establish Native theater as an integrated subject of
study and creative development in tribal colleges, Native communities,
K-12 schools, and mainstream institutions, based on Native perspectives,
traditions, views of spirituality, histories, cultures, languages,
communities, and lands.
The
founders and co-directors of Project HOOP are Hanay Geiogamah,
a member of the Kiowa-Delaware tribes from Oklahoma and Professor
of Theater in the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television,
and Jaye T. Darby, Ph.D., a leading theater educator and Assistant
Professor in the College of Education at San Diego State University.
Of all
the twentieth-century Native art forms rooted in tribal traditions,
Native thater remains the most neglected due to lack of funding,
scholarship, curriculum development, and staffing. Yet Native theater
is perhaps one of the most viable for tribal communities and educational
settings because of its high interest level for students, its high
degree of grassroots community involvement, the versatility for
unique tribal expression and cultural generation, and the potential
for economic development. Through the advancement of Native theater
programs, Project HOOP looks to the development of powerful cultural,
spiritual, and economic pipelines throughout interested tribal
colleges and communities and opportunities for Native students
and community members to assume leadership roles in community,
regional, and national theater, film, and television.
Project
HOOP simultaneously combines academic and artistic program delivery
in Native theater with community cultural development and economic
empowerment for tribal colleges, schools, and their communities.
Specifically, the initiative first developed and implemented a
replicable two-year program that included core curricula, scholarly
books, mentoring expertise, and a culminating community theater
festival at Sinte Gleska University in Rosebud, South Dakota. Successful
refinements of this pilot led to a multi-model design to increas
flexibility and tribal community involvement in the implementation
of the project in a variety of settings, including the Institute
of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Haskell Indian
Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, Little Big Horn College
in Crow Agency, Montana, and other interested sites. This multi-model
design encompasses ten educational models to enhance delivery of
academic and artistic offerings and support the development of
Native performing arts.
Project
HOOP Models
Models
1-5 are programmatic and enhance post-secondary, academic programming
Model
1 - Two-Year Course of Study in Native Theater
Model
1 includes Introduction to Native Theater (Year One-2
semester or 3 quarter courses), and The Development of Native
Theater in Tribal Communities (Year Two-semester or 3 quarter
classes), summer workshops, Artists-in-Residence, and a culminating
community student festival) to enhance existing Liberal Studies,
Humanities, Native Studies, and/or Fine Arts programs.
Model
2 - One Semester or One-Year Course of Studying Native Theater
Model
2 focuses on Introduction t Native Theater (1 or 2 semesters),
Artist(s)-in-Residence, and in-class and/or college-wide showcase
of student projects to enrich existing Liberal Studies, Humanities,
Native Studies, and/or Fine Arts programs.
Model
3 - Associate of Arts (A.A.) or Associate of Fine Arts Degree (A.F.A.)
in Theater with an Emphasis on Native Theater
Degree
concentration in Theater and implementation of the two-year course
of study in Native Theater (Model 1) with supplemental theater
courses to provide the basis of the two-year degree.
Model
4 - B.A. Major in Theater with and Emphasis on Native Theater
This
model focuses on the implementation of a four-year course of
study in Theater, with an emphasis on Native Theater, based on
Model 1 with supplemental upper-division theater courses to provide
the basis of B.A. major in Theater.
Model
5 - Native Theater Summer Session
Implementation
of an intensive summer session to provide in-depth instruction
in Theater and related areas to students seriously interested
in the field.
Models
6-9 focus on curriculum and instruction and enhance K-12 and
postsecondary programs
Model
6 - Dramatic Literature through Performance Model
Through
the use of Project HOOP publications in Native American literature
classes and performance techniques appropriate for college English,
this model provides pedagogical approaches for teaching literature
through performance to enhance critical thinking, deepen appreciation
of literature, and integrate Native performance techniques as
students study and dramatize scenes from a selection of Native
plays.
Model
7 - Drama-in-Education Model for Teacher Education
The
implementation of drama-in-education pedagogical approaches in
teacher education to improve learning in K-12 teaching and schools
for Native students. These approaches will draw on Howard Gardner's
Multiple Intelligence theory and the importance of culturally
responsive Native education.
Model
8 - Curricular Enhancement in Postsecondary Education
Implementation
of the Project HOOP publications and selected curricular materials
and/or engagement of Project HOOP Artist(s)-in-Residence in existing
theater, literature, creative writing, education, and/or Native
studies programs.
Model
9 - Curricular Enhancement iin K-12 education
Implementation
of the Project HOOP selected curricular materials and/or engagement
of Project HOOP Artist(s)-in-Residence for youth and K-12 schools.
Model
focuses on community and professional development of Native theater
Model
10 - Theater Development for Native Communities and Cultural Centers
Implementation
of Project HOOP Artist(s)-in-Residence to develop Native dance
theaters and other forms of Native theater for Native communities.
These programs will be adapted to the local tribal community
(i.e., urban, intertribal, Lakota, Creek, regional, etc.).
To advance
scholarship in Native theater, the UCLA American Indian Studies
Center published three edited volumes for use with thses models: Stories
of Our Way: An Anthology of American Indian Plays (1999) and American
Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader (2000), both edited
by Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye T. Darby, and Keepers of the Morning
Star: An Anthology of Native Women's Theater (2003), edited
by Jaye T. Darby and Stephanie Fitzgerald.
Project
HOOP is the only comprehensive Native theater, education, and community
development program of its kind in the United States. It offers
a wide range of integrated academic, artistic, and cultural models
for theater by, for, and about Native Americans, based on Native
performing arts forms and infused with traditional ceremonial purposes.
Because of its broad vision and inclusive approach, Project HOOP
continues to generate a high degree of national interest among
tribal communities and Native theater artists. |
