Audiences attending New York theater are used to hearing the announcement at the beginning of many productions—that the venue they are sitting stands on land that was the original homeland of the Lenape people. In the program for the Public Theater’s production of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s 2013 play, Manahatta (to Dec. 23), the statement has grown in declarative emphasis. “The Public stands in honor of the first people and our ancestors…We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this territory. We honor the generations of stewards, and we pay our respects to the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land.”
The play, directed by Laurie Woolery, takes place in two time zones and places—the year of the financial crash in 2008 in Manhattan and Oklahoma, and then 17th century Manahatta (popularly known as Manhattan Island), where Dutch settlers land, and—first by inquisitive charm, then by brute force—displace the Lenape. The play contrasts the echoing themes of the two different eras: the violent centrifugal spin of money, racism, trade, power, and identity. The company of actors play different characters with similar characteristics in both eras.
Present in both old and modern storylines are the Lenape—a people in the 17th century selling furs and at home in what we know today as Downtown Manhattan. In the 17th century, we see the incipient forces of capitalism destroy the Lenape in their own homeland; in 2008, we see a modern Lenape family in Oklahoma threatened with losing their home because of the financial crash.
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Doylestown, PA—On December 4th at noon, in the house where the songs and lyrics for some of the most famous musical theater shows were written: Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music, a press conference led by Greg Roth, President of The Oscar Hammerstein Museum & Theatre Education Center informed the community that the property was purchased earlier in the day and the nonprofit is now finally the owner of Highland Farm.
Present at the event was Pennsylvania State Senator Steve Santarsiero, Doylestown Township Supervisor Jenn Herring, Executive Director of the Bucks County Industrial Development Authority, TJ Lonergan, IDA Board member Mary Smithson, former Doylestown Mayor Ron Strouse, members of the Oscar Hammerstein Museum and Theatre Education Center Board and very special guests, family members Will and Mandee Hammerstein and Jenny Hammerstein.
The board worked tirelessly for years to raise enough funding, approximately two million dollars, and after purchasing the property yesterday, they will now embark on a new campaign to raise the funds necessary to renovate the entire property and build a theatre education center where the plan is to provide theatre, music, and performance programming for the community.
Greg thanked former and current board members Jamie Rogers, Vice President, Christine Junker, Secretary and Treasurer, Judy Abrams, Matt Britten, Amy Cinque, Van Dean, Sasha Eisenberg, Lori Kesilman, Vanessa Kirchner, Mike Peters, Grace Alfiero, Keith Fenimore and Meg Roth for their work in creating awareness and helping to raise the funds necessary for the purchase. Former board member Lori Kesilman commented, “I know that Oscar would be so proud of our mission to educate children of all backgrounds who are interested in all aspects of writing and musical theater arts. Today’s purchase is a result of the hard work of so many people. I am truly…
Mary Kathryn Nagle’s play about the overthrow and the genocide of the Lenape Nation on the island of Manhattan returns to that historic locale, as well as the Public Theater where it was originally commissioned and workshopped in 2014. Professional regional productions of the play have followed, but “Manahatta” finally comes home in more ways than one. On Tuesday at the Public, Nagle’s play premieres in its titular locale.
It is the story of the American Holocaust, and as stories go, “Manahatta” possesses all the horrific and devastating narrative power of Hitler’s Holocaust. The difference is that the extermination of six million Jews has been the subjects of dozens of plays, from “The Diary of Anne Frank” to “Leopoldstadt.” American guilt has been much harder for Americans to write about, and until now, there hasn’t been much written on the subject in the theater beyond the ubiquitous Off Broadway apology that “this theater is built on the land of the Lenape Nation.”
Nagle could have limited her play to the “purchase” of the lower tip of the island of Manahatta. She dramatizes that $24 transaction by the Dutch from the Lenape in the 17th Century with powerful precision to show the clash of two cultures: the Lenape have no concept of ownership, which is essential to the European identity. When the Dutch merchant Peter Minuit (Jeffrey King) asks members (Enrico Nassi and Elizabeth Frances) of the Lenape Nation if the land they are “selling” belongs to them, they answer that it is their home.
That same monetary disconnect is reflected later in Nagle’s play when Bobbie (Sheila Tousey), a member of the Lenape now living in Oklahoma, needs to take out a loan on her house. The bank needs…
University land acknowledgment statements are intended to honor and respect the Indigenous tribes that have lived on the land on which institutions and universities are built, oftentimes as a byproduct of erasure and colonization. Alone, without any kind of action, they can be performative. But at the least, they are a start, a way for a university to promote an atmosphere of respect for Indigenous people.
The Philadelphia-based universities that currently have a statement in place are: the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, University of the Arts, Villanova University, Ursinus College and Drexel University. Many more institutions outside of the Philadelphia region also have such statements.
St. Joe’s does not have an approved land acknowledgment statement.
We applaud the faculty, students and staff who began discussions about a land acknowledgment statement almost two years ago at the university’s 2022 Day of Dialogue and those who joined the Indigenous Cultures and Communities Working Group that formed shortly after.
We also applaud the University Faculty Senate for endorsing the Working Group’s statement in May 2023, which recognizes that St. Joe’s is located on the ancestral homeland of the Lenape peoples, who lived there for more than 10,000 years prior to European imperial colonization. The endorsed statement promises that the university commits to “building meaningful relationships with Lenape and other Indigenous communities to inform advancing teaching materials, scholarship, arts, academic programs, sustainability practices, and community engagement that honor and uplift Indigenous knowledge and practices.”
But, nearly three years since discussions began, we’re still waiting for that statement to become official. We’re still waiting to hear it read before university-wide events and incorporated into class syllabi. We’re still waiting for that promise of meaningful connections with the Lenape and other Indigenous tribes.
If you’re looking for the area’s best holiday light displays, we’ve got you covered. We asked members of the All Things Chester County FaceBook group to send their favorite houses, and scoured the ChristmasPrism app (available for free on IOS and Android) to compile a road trip list just for you!
Lenape Lights, near Brandywine Ace Pet & Farm Lenape Rd/Lenape Farm Ln https://christmasprism.app.link/343X3AUUVEb?uri_redirect_mode=1 An interactive light display choreographed to music. Tune in to 94.9FM for the music portion of the show. Display starts at 5:30pm
Christmas Spectacular, Tyson Rd https://christmasprism.app.link/9iHWynAr8Eb?uri_redirect_mode=1 Come by and see our light display. Lots of lights and blow ups. Movie projector of The Grinch (live action version) plays all night long. Huge event December 16th 5:30pm
Grizzizziz Holiday Spectacular, Old Westtown Rd https://christmasprism.app.link/CujUF0Tw5Eb?uri_redirect_mode=1 Fun house with window animations, colorful lights and patterns and lots of inflatables. Come see Santa’s Workshop and an Inflatable Frank the Gargoyle. Tune into 107.9FM for audio.
Welded Metal Artist Kaimi Niemann Unveils “Mahalo Lenape” on the Upper East Side at former Richard Avedon studio”
— kaimi niemann
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, December 4, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Welded Metal Artistry Transcends Time and Tradition: Kaimi Niemann Unveils “Mahalo Lenape” on the Upper East Side
NEW YORK, NY –
Renowned welded metal artist Kaimi Niemann invites art enthusiasts and cultural connoisseurs to experience the unveiling of “Mahalo Lenape” at 407 East 75th Street, New York City, on Saturday, November 18, 2023.
“Mahalo Lenape” pays homage to the rich tapestry of Lenape heritage, seamlessly woven into the historical fabric of ‘Manahatta,’ the land of hills, which has been a cultural hub and gathering place for centuries. Niemann’s meticulous craftsmanship over five years has resulted in a welded metal sculpture that stands as a vibrant tribute to the Lenape tribe’s peaceful existence.
Situated in Manhattan, “Mahalo Lenape” represents more than just an art installation; it embodies a spiritual odyssey of prayer, meditation, and the transformative art of yoga. Niemann’s artistic alchemy melds metals into a stunning portrayal of the original stewards of the land, envisioning a life in harmonious balance with all of creation.
Curtis Zunigha, a tribal director, lauds the work, stating, “Mahalo Lenape, through its vivid color, dynamic shape, and rich texture, profoundly honors the Lenape spirit.”
Recognized as the ‘Picasso of Steel’ and drawing inspiration from Claire Falkenstein’s “New Gates of Paradise,” Niemann infuses his unique flair into this magnum opus. The welded metal masterpiece, likened to the works of Jackson Pollock, is a testament to Niemann’s artistic prowess and deep connection to the cultural and historical roots embedded in the Lenape spirit.
This transformative artwork invites onlookers to engage and immerse themselves in the deep historical and cultural essence within. Beyond being a…
The introductory panel to the exhibition “Never Broken: Visualizing Lenape Histories” — currently on view at the Michener Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania — states something remarkably important to the region.
But it isn’t in the words. It is the image on which the text is written: an overhead view of the Abbott Marshlands at the estuary where the Crosswicks Creek meets the Delaware River.
Joe Baker’s ‘Three Sisters,’ a 1997 oil on canvas from The John and Susan Horseman Collection, courtesy of the Horseman Foundation.
The land — part of Trenton, Hamilton, and Bordentown — is the site of what had been one of the largest Eastern settlements of Native American — as well as documentation of human activity there for 13,000 years.
It is also roughly in the center of the land called Lenapehoking (Land of the Lenape).
They are the indigenous people whose territory included all of what is known today as New Jersey, New York Bay and Hudson Valley, the eastern section of Pennsylvania, and northern sections of Delaware.
They are also the people whose culture was disrupted and then suppressed to near the point of extinction by European colonization, starting in the early 1600s.
The exhibition’s reference to “Never Broken” argues that the culture has never disappeared and that the exhibition is a type of reaffirmation.
The “visualizing” reference signals that the reaffirming will be done through visual art.
And, indeed, viewers will encounter ancient Lenape designs, European and Colonial depictions of the Lenape people, and new works by contemporary Lenape artists — who combine both Lenape and European and American art traditions.
The curators of what is being touted as the first exhibition of its kind…
Wall Street is more than just a crosstown street at the southern tip of Manhattan. The term itself has become synonymous with the entire American financial market. But its origins go back to the northern border wall of 17th century New Amsterdam. Built by enslaved people, the wall was meant to keep the English from invading the Dutch colony. But it also kept out the land’s first people, the Lenapehoking.
Of course, to the colonizers, the land was theirs, purchased from the tribe in 1626 by the Dutch West India Company. The land was traded for (in today’s exchange) about $1,000 worth of goods, including tools, guns, cloths, and wampum, the shell beads used as currency in fur trading between Native Americans and early settlers. Peter Minuit brokered the deal.
In Mary Kathryn Nagle’s play Manahatta, now running at The Public Theater through December 23, the playwright draws a direct line from that first trade of land ownership on Wall Street to the housing market collapse in 2008. Nagle deftly weaves past and present to tell the story of the 17th-century Lenape-Dutch trade and a modern Lenape family in Oklahoma, whose home is under threat of bank repossession. It’s also a tale of two siblings: of one sister who stayed in Oklahoma and works to keep the Lenape language alive and the other sister who left to work for a financial firm on Wall Street.
Rainbow Dickerson, Sheila Tousey, Jeffrey King, David Kelly, and Joe Tapper in Manahatta Joan Marcus
Nagle is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and originally from Oklahoma (where most tribes were forcibly relocated during the Indian Removals). She now makes her home in Washington, D.C. and, like many playwrights, Nagle has a day job. She’s a lawyer, specializing in…
Rainbow Dickerson, Sheila Tousey, Jeffrey King, David Kelly, and Joe Tapper in Manahatta Joan Marcus