Who says local means only that...local? The best "go local" campaigns and causes have a larger, global impact. For example, one of the many global perks of buying local produce means less pollution world-wide, because we aren't shipping our food across continents with big trucks and planes. Choreographer Emily Johnson infuses this idea of going "lobal" into her art. She makes dance locally in the Twin Cities with her dance company Catalyst, yet her newest performance installation, The Thank-you Bar, is about displacement on a larger scale.
Born and raised in Alaska, and currently based in Minneapolis, Johnson investigates the meaning of displacement, for her native heritage and for other native communities. Of Yup'ik descent, Johnson feels a chasm between her life in Minneapolis and her childhood in Alaska, fishing with her family, storytelling, and spending time at her grandmother's bar, the Que-Ana Bar (queyana is Yup'ik for thank you). With The Thank-you Bar, she makes a global statement about feelings of displacement by telling her personal story.
Johnson adds more depth to the dance performance by pairing up with artist/curator Carolyn Lee Anderson to gather art from Native artists from nineteen different tribal nations, exploring the issue of displacement. The exhibit, titled THIS IS DISPLACEMENT: Native Artists Consider the Relationship Between Land & Identity, is mostly made up of local Minnesota artists, but it, too, speaks to a larger, more universal theme of displacement.
Check out this video of Johnson's research for and early stages of The Thank-you Bar.
So, all you globally aware people out there, go "lobal" this week with The Thank-you Bar by Emily Johnson | Catalyst + BLACKFISH
-Melissa Wray
Communications Coordinator
