In Support of Emily Johnson
On January 22, Emily Johnson, a contemporary dance artist of the Yup’ik Nation based in New York, published A Letter I Hope in the Future, Doesn’t Need to be Written, regarding her experience working with Jed Wheeler, the Executive Director of Peak Performances at Montclair State University (MSU). On February 4, MSU issued a letter in response to Emily. To provide context, it’s helpful to read both letters.
Emily Johnson is a world-renowned Indigenous artist whom we respect and support. As a matter of transparency, we note that Emily sits on WAA’s Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) Committee.
WAA’s strategic plan calls on us to nurture a more inclusive and equitable community. WAA initiated AIP specifically to center Indigenous artists and to break down barriers of systemic racism and implicit bias. In the letter that follows, WAA affirms our support for Emily and her efforts to decolonize the creation and presentation of the performing arts.
An Open Letter to the WAA Community and our Colleagues:
As leaders and staff of Western Arts Alliance, an organization that has worked with Emily Johnson over the last six years, we have followed closely the distressing conflict between Emily Johnson/Catalyst and Montclair State University that has sparked a critically important national conversation.
Emily Johnson is a world-renowned Indigenous artist whom we respect and support. She has been a member of WAA’s Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) Steering Committee since its inception and a driving force behind the work of Creating New Futures, an initiative to promote ethics and fairness in the engagement and commissioning of arts workers. We support her unconditionally in her efforts to dismantle systemic injustice and decolonize/Indigenize the projects, partners, audiences, and venues with whom she makes her work.
This moment offers an opportunity to once again strengthen our resolve and our commitment to equity in the performing arts presenting field. We offer this letter supporting Emily and Catalyst as well as all Indigenous artists and allies across the country who seek to decolonize the performing arts. But this letter is also meant to embolden our members, colleagues, and sister institutions to confront these issues head-on. We believe that only by acknowledging and dismantling the layers of policy, hierarchy, and practice that uphold white supremacy can we heal and advance our field, indeed our country.
A small coalition of colleges and universities founded Western Arts Alliance in 1967. Today, institutions of higher education comprise nearly 30 percent of our presenter membership. We assert that university presenters are uniquely positioned to play a vital role in this reconciliation, especially those endowed by land-grants who owe their very existence to the capitalization of Native lands and the exploitation of Black and other POC labor.
In 2017, the WAA Board of Directors adopted a strategic plan for WAA to “nurture a more inclusive and equitable community rooted in shared values of openness and generosity” and specifies a major goal to “deepen support for Indigenous performing artists and touring networks.” The AIP program resulted from that directive, as did the development of Conexiones—WAA’s Latinx forum—and Black Arts @ WAA.
Today’s arts practitioners work in an environment that is continually shifting as we adapt to the challenges and rigors of our current social, economic, cultural, and political climate. WAA seeks to enhance the ability of artists and organizations to realize their artistic and public service goals by offering an array of educational opportunities that build cultural competency, stimulate ingenuity, and foster leadership.
We are at a critical time of change. We are collectively experiencing the tension and the beauty of social upheaval and redefining our understandings of history, class, gender, and racial inequity. In a moment that some perceive as threatening, we instead embrace inclusive change as a roadmap to a more equitable society. It is time for us to listen, learn, and commit ourselves to healing and change.
We are late as a nation and an industry to begin this work, and we cannot wait any longer. WAA invites you to embrace this moment with us:
Join WAA in our commitment to examine our own biases.
Admit that we are triggered by our fears and embarrassed by what we don’t yet know.
Let go of our egos and ethnocentrism.
Listen more than we speak.
Embark on a learning journey that begins with accepting the possibility that what has gone before is not the best way or even the right way.
We do not expect to be comfortable doing this work. But it is important that we be open to giving away power, embracing new ideas, and reveling in the blossoming of others and their communities. This movement is inviting us not only to add seats to a larger table but to reconstruct the table altogether.
The Board and Staff of Western Arts Alliance