Land Acknowledgement Action
The University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts & Dance (UMTAD) is located on traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of the Dakota people. As the 2023 TRUTH report showed, our department is also part of a university system with a Land-Grant legacy, founded on and profiting from the seizure of Indigenous lands and resources.
Land acknowledgements are an important starting point in recognizing these facts. But we should not stop there: we can work towards repairing our relations with the Oceti Sakowin by supporting their work in land recovery and reparative justice. As a first step in this process, UMTAD recently instituted a policy of returning part of our Rarig and Barker ticket revenue to a Dakota led organization working in land recovery. We see this as a way to begin educating ourselves and our audiences about what it might mean to truly decolonize the arts.
This year, these funds will be directed to Makoce Ikikcupi, a Dakota land recovery organization seeking to repair the harms of settler-colonialism. Every two years, our doctoral students will consult with Indigenous faculty and leadership at University of Minnesota to identify an appropriate organization to fund. If you have a suggestion for an organization to consider, please email UMTAD Chair, Margaret Werry.
(Thank you to Chris Bell, Sara Pillatzki-Warzeha, and the PhD cohort of 2020-1 for spearheading this initiative.)
