S04E07 | Alaska Native Narratives: Interview with Indigenous Filmmaker & Writer Kavelina Torres

PhDivas

"Dead, drunk, or dancing": Kavelina SnowGiggles Torres​ (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq/Athabascan) seeks to challenge the usual media representations of Indigenous peoples. PhDiva Xine Yao​ interviews Kavelina about her work as a writer and filmmaker selected for the Sundance NativeLab Fellowship. What can narrative do that documentaries can't? Yugumalleq/Shades of Life (2014) is currently on exhibit at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her play "Something in the Living Room" will be performed spring 2018 at Green College, UBC on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam people. This episode contains references to Star Trek, Firefly, The Fifth Element, and much more scifi geekery. Duncan McCue is attributed to the quote “drumming, dancing, drunk or dead”. He heard it from an elder. His rule is called the WD4 rule. A Indigenous/Aboriginal will make it in media if they are a “Warrior, drumming, dancing, drunk or dead”. He is an Anishinaubae, from Ontario, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. Kavelina's Twitter: @SnowGigglesAK Vision Maker Media: https://www.visionmakermedia.org/bios/kavelina-torres "Yugumalleq" is part of "The Abundant North: Alaska Native Films of Influence" at the Institute of American Indian Arts: https://iaia.edu/event/abundant-north-alaska-native-films-influence/