Description
For mature audiences
Masks required
Tzonteyōtl Na’ach’ąąh (Resistance Art) A Diné & Xikan@ Collaboration is a cross cultural, Indigenous, intergenerational, collaboration of resistance art, between Los Angeles based artist/activist Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, and local Diné artist/anarchist Klee Jones Benally. The project consists of approximately 90-minute performance art pieces with spoken word, drag, dance, music, and visual projections. In this collaborative performance connecting Diné and Xican@ cultures we offer an unraveling of histories through shared re-imaginings which will celebrate the art of Indigenous resistance against the gendered violence of colonialism. Donations accepted benefiting local aid organizations, Kinlani/Flagstaff Mutual Aid – Solidarity Not Charity! (kinlanimutualaid.org and Northern Arizona Immigration Legal Services (immigration-naz.org).
(Klee Jones Benally) We live where the streets have no shame. Where the most revered holy site of 13 Indigenous Nations is desecrated with treated sewage. Where unsheltered Indigenous Peoples are disproportionately arrested while facing freezing temperatures. Where the names of Indigenous women like Ariel Bryant, Nicole Joe, and Vanessa Lee are lost in-between brief news posts and labeled as missing, as murdered. This is occupied Kinłani, so-called Flagstaff, a “border town” of many borders and buried histories. From forced migrations and border wall militarization, to assaults on bodily autonomy and transphobic attacks, how do we find harmony when the borders of colonial violence cross our lives every day?
(Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara) My performance, “Funkahuatl Speaks” not only addresses past and current toxic injustices and violence experienced by Indigneous peoples but will also reveal through spoken word and ritual theater their unique, elemental contributions and achievements in agriculture (corn, squash, beans, avocados, chocolate, etc.) the arts, architecture, and astronomy (Mayan and Aztec). Knowledge of these struggles, contributions and achievements can possibly shift misperceptions and show the intrinsic, elemental value of Indigenous cultures and how their various contributions have continued to enrich this country and continent for thousands of years. Hopefully, a more transparent, equitable, educated, and humane society will emerge.
Klee Jones Benally is a Diné musician, writer, artist, traditional dancer, filmmaker, & Indigenous anarchist. Klee is originally from Black Mesa and has worked nearly all of his life at the front lines in struggles to protect Indigenous sacred lands. Klee provides strategic planning and direct-action training with Indigenous Action. Klee has helped establish a range of organizations including Táala Hooghan Infoshop, Clean Up The Mines, Haul No!, Protect the Peaks, and is currently organizing COVID-19 response with Kinłani Mutual Aid. Has been an entertainer with Native American Music Award winning rock group Blackfire & the internationally acclaimed traditional dance group, The Jones Benally Family.
Organizational Experience:
- Indigenous Action Media, founder 2001 Web & graphic design, workshops, writing
- Outta Your Backpack Media, founder/director 2004 volunteer coordination, mentorship, outreach, fundraising * Haul No!, founder/volunteer 2017 outreach, event planning, advocacy
- Clean Up The Mines, national coordinator 2014-2019 event coordination, social media outreach, advocacy * Protect the Peaks, coordinator 2012
Selected works/presentations
Film:
- Greening the Revolution 2010
- The Snowbowl Effect 2005
- Power Lines 2016
- Poise/End VR short documentary 2017
Published:
- Edge of Morning: Native Voices Speak for the Bears Ears 2017
- Black Seed: Not on Any Map 2021
- Building Power While the Lights Are Out 2022
Gallery showings:
- Heard Museum, Confluence 2016
- PARCHED: The Art of Water in the Southwest 2021
- Avenging the Animas Loom Gallery Solo Show 2016
- Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land 2017
Appearances:
- Keynote, Prescott College 2013
- Democracy Now! 2014
- Keynote, CSUN 2016
- Konnected TV, Episode 13, 2017
Web & Graphic design:
- cleanupthemines.org
- protectthepeaks.org
- haulno.com
- indigenousaction.org
Recognitions
- Chomsky Award for Social Justice, Justice Studies Association 2018
- Best Rock Recording, Native American Music Awards 2002
- Record of the Year, Native American Music Awards 2008
- Best Picture, Power Lines, Red Nation Film Festival 2016
- Excellence in Storytelling, Flagstaff Viola Awards 2017
Los Angeles Xikano Native, musician, poet, performer, and author, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, is the subject of the 2021 Emmy nominated episode “Con Safos” for the KCET/ PBS SoCal series, Artbound. The documentary also received two local and two national broadcast journalism awards which featured sixty years of his work as a “Chicano culture sculptor” in theater, spoken word, record production, and as a singer-songwriter-band leader.
His theater career began in 1971 with “Who Are The People?” (A tour de force. -LA Times.) Guevara toured the country as the leader of the Frank Zappa produced, Ruben And The Jets, with Zappa, Three Dog Night, and T-Rex. Prior to that he made his national television debut on Shindig! with Tina Turner and Bo Diddley.
Guevara was the musical director for HBO/CINEMAX’s first Latin music special “Caliente y Picante” featuring Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Carlos Santana, Rubén Blades, and Linda Ronstadt. He toured France as a performance artist with the landmark Chicano art show, “Le Demon des Anges.” He was co-producer with a Rockefeller Foundation grant for MEXAMÉRICA, a cross-cultural collaboration CD with bands, essayists, graphic artists, and poets from Mexico and Los Angeles. He produced “Los Angelinos: The Eastside Renaissance” a compilation album of Los Angeles Chicano bands including his spoken word composition “C/S” by his band Con Safos https://youtube.com/45gUrJOZrNg . “C,/S” is considered a prototype of Chicano spoken word, an anthem, and was compared to Fela Kuti by rock critic, Dave Marsh. Guevara also produced “Reconquista! The Latin Rock Invasion” a compilation CD of rock en Español bands from Latin America, Spain, and País Vasco. (4 stars -Rolling Stone.)
Guevara’s memoir, “Confessions Of A Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer” (University of California Press) was a finalist for the 2019 International Latino Book awards for best autobiography in English. He toured the book at universities across the country where the book was required reading.
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts Guevara designated Guevara a Boyle Heights cultural treasure. In 2022 he was awarded “Innovative Artist of the Year” by the Eastside Arts Initiative/LA Plaza de Culturas y Artes.
“Masao and The Bronze Nightingale”, his award-winning short story, was adapted into a hit play, (A moving epic, -Stage Raw.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MJd2OCTQi0&t=4108s .
Guevara was a participant in the Vincent Price Art Museum’s group show “Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art” named a top fifty exhibition of 2022 by Hyperallergic. He will be a participant next year in another group show “Presente! Latinx Artists of America” at the National Museum for the American Latino at the Smithsonian.
Guevara is the founder-director of Arts 4 City Youth, a free arts program in Los Angeles, white teaching poetry at schools, Metropolitan State Hospital LA Juvenile Hall, and prisons. Guevara’s poetry has been published in Dryland and The Los Angeles Press.
He graduated from UCLA with honors from the World Arts and Cultures program with Native American theater/playwrighting/performance mentor/professor Hanay Geiogamah (Kiowa), director of the American Indian Dance Theater, and radical theater director/mentor/professor, Peter Sellars.
Guevara is the poet laureate for Great Leap, a Little Tokyo multi-cross-cultural performance collective reading opening poems for FandangObon, an annual cross-cultural celebration honoring ancestors from the Mexican, Japanese American and African diaspora through collaborative traditional music and dance performances.
A spoken word vinyl album “GRITO de LOS DOS de LOS,” in collaboration with Matt Sedillo, will be released in spring, 2023.
“Funkahuatl Speaks,” a collection of his stories, poems, songs, and memories is in the works.
http://tantrikfunk.net
Twitter: @funkahuatl
Instagram: @rubenfunkahuatl
Lady Shug is a proud Indigenous queen, born of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, growing up in the four corners area in New Mexico. Lady Shug’s drag persona, has been in the business of female impersonation for over 10+ years.
She was first created in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she was able to start her career and work amongst some of the best entertainers of the world at the Las Vegas Strip, performing nightly and rubbing shoulders with your favorite celebrities.
After being in the limelight for so many years, the land of enchantment called her home. Recently relocated and is now living on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona/New Mexico border. She has been fighting for equal rights as an activist for her 2SLGBTQIA+ Indigenous relatives, to create equal rights in rural areas and reservations that do not normally protect those on Indigenous lands. She loves working with the grassroot collectives, which has been the key to encouragement in Lady Shug and to smash white supremacy and heteropatriarchy for our Indigenous trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming folks.
Her creativity has connected with her passion of drag and female impersonation, to use her platform on stage and to stand in solidarity or create social movements in her drag performances. She was featured on platforms such as USA today, New York Times, VICE, Vogue Spain, and PBS networks.
Recently, Lady Shug was featured on an HBO Special “We’re Here,” featuring Drag Race alumni Bob the Drag Queen, Shangela and Eureka. The series follows them going to small towns and empowering everyone to the art form of drag. Lady Shug was one of the highlights in the season finale, as an Indigenous queen that strives to bring drag back to our Indigenous territory. Lady Shug was so excited to have this platform, to inspire folks young and old that it is okay to be who you are and to be proud of yourself, whether you are a Pow Wow dancer, a drag queen, a comedian, a parent, a teacher, or even a caregiver. You are worthy of love and acceptance, and Lady Shug wishes to embody that feeling of love and Pride, so no Indigenous queer person ever gets left behind.
Sonni Pinto is an Indigenous dancer, freestyler, and visual performance artist. Arizona descendent for 40 years, grew up in dancing in Indigenous social Pow-Wow circuits, and street dance. Sonni is expressive in Hip-Hop and house movement, Culture, identity, and experimental social awareness.”
https://tv.azpm.org/p/season6/2019/10/28/160992-indigenous-peoples-day/
https://tv.azpm.org/p/azill-recent/2017/4/5/108549-shooting-columbus/
Danza Mexica Mexicayōtl
We are a Danza group that focuses on bringing awareness to injustices affecting Indigenous people and people around the world. We use our culture and traditions as a tool to bring awareness to such issues and allow our dances to “speak for us” in order to convey such messages to the public.
