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A biohazard-orange neon sign in SITE Santa Fe鈥檚 front window, announces in all-caps: 鈥淓VERY AMERICAN FLAG IS A WARNING SIGN.鈥�

This provocative piece by Gallup-born Din茅 artist Demian Din茅Yazhi' is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the exhibition, 鈥淚ndian Theater: Native Performance, Art and Self-Determination since 1969.鈥�

Titled 鈥渕y ancestors will not let me forget this,鈥� both the title and the text come from a line in the artist鈥檚 poem, 鈥淎n Infected Sunset,鈥� which reads, 鈥渕y ancestors will not let me forget this and every american flag is a warning sign even the one my grandfather was given as a Code Talker.鈥�

White supremacists and Christian nationalists have long embraced the American flag. When the German American Bund, an explicitly pro-Nazi group, held its rally at New York City鈥檚 Madison Square Garden in 1939, they hung stylized American flag banners next to a 30-foot-tall portrait of George Washington. After the Sept. 11 attacks, a proliferation of American flags coincided with a sharp uptick in hate crimes against Muslim Americans. The Ku Klux Klan has a long, well-documented history of waving American flags at their marches, as well.

But Din茅Yazhi' is not simply warning of the misappropriation of the flag by violent, far-right extremists. The totalizing word 鈥渆very鈥� is what makes their statement provocative. When the artist鈥檚 ancestors first encountered the Stars and Stripes, it signaled an invasion. Later, after those invaders had established their rule 鈥渇rom sea to shining sea,鈥� the flag began to function as an ideological shibboleth, a test of allegiance. To fly the American flag was to affirm the legitimacy of the settler colonial state, and anyone who questioned it might be suspected of disloyalty.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with theater?

Curator Candice Hopkins makes a compelling case that the Native Theater movement, which began at Santa Fe鈥檚 Institute of American Indian Arts in 1969, cannot be separated from the larger Native Self-Determination movement, which began that same year with the occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Indians of All Tribes collective. The works in 鈥淚ndian Theater鈥� follow from both traditions.

Din茅Yazhi'鈥檚 neon piece may not be 鈥渢heater鈥� in the conventional sense, but it functions as a work of political theater, challenging visitors to question their own assumptions as they cross the museum鈥檚 threshold. For us non-Indigenous folks who are used to having our perspectives validated within cultural institutions, it鈥檚 a sign 鈥� a literal one 鈥� that this time, we might be the outsiders.

Once inside, the mood softens. Instead of the typical harsh, white walls we expect from museums, the first gallery is lined in pink and red burlap wallpaper, which Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi/Choctaw) designed in the 1960s while studying under the artist, fashion designer and IAIA co-founder Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee). New鈥檚 1973 diptych of mixed-media paintings, 鈥淪ummer Spirit, Winter Spirit,鈥� hangs there, too. Lomahaftewa and New both drew inspiration from ancestral performance traditions, using Indigenous masks as motifs. In the same room, visitors encounter primary source documents 鈥� text and video 鈥� from the Indian Theater movement that New and his students helped launch.

From there, visitors may choose from three paths. Continuing ahead, one encounters monumental, fiber-based hanging sculptures by Eric-Paul Riege (Din茅), designed as giant earrings for larger-than-life gods. Riege often activates his sculptures through durational performances whose relationship to ritual and ceremony is not too different from what the early practitioners of Indian Theater had in mind. In his 鈥淣otes on Indian Theatre and Theatre Practice鈥� (1969), IAIA professor Rolland R. Meinholtz, in collaboration with his Indigenous colleagues and students, argued that a distinctly Indigenous form of theater, evolving out of ceremonial practices, should follow a 鈥渟lightly flattened鈥� narrative arc, 鈥渨hich does not 鈥榩eak鈥欌�� or 鈥渞each a highpoint, as in Western European Theatre.鈥� Riege鈥檚 durational performances echo the slow, steady rhythms of ritual.

If one turns right instead of continuing forward, there are two other rooms one may enter: a brightly colored pop art installation by the contemporary Indigenous collective New Red Order or, in a smaller room, a performance piece called 鈥淲hite Carver,鈥� created by Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax). Both use wickedly funny satirical humor to critique the fetishization and commodification of Indigenous cultures.

I first encountered New Red Order鈥檚 work in 2023 in Long Island City, Queens. The collective had transformed a vacant lot into a theme-park-like installation, called 鈥淭he World鈥檚 UnFair鈥� 鈥� a spoof on historical world鈥檚 fairs. Alongside talking animatronic animals, there were video monitors throughout the lot featuring a self-described 鈥渞eformed Native American impersonator鈥� 鈥� white actor Jim Fletcher 鈥� asking visitors to consider bequeathing their property to Indigenous communities after they die. Fletcher appears with a similar message in videos that are part of New Red Order鈥檚 installation at SITE. Although couched in irony, these works provide a feasible solution to the problem of returning land to Indigenous communities, which is sometimes dismissed as a political nonstarter. Even in the absence of political will, incremental gains for the Land Back movement might be achieved through individual acts of goodwill.

Living, breathing Black and Indigenous people were sometimes put on display at world鈥檚 fairs, in grotesque exhibits known as 鈥渉uman zoos,鈥� during the 19th and 20th centuries. At the 1958 Brussels World鈥檚 Fair, visitors were allowed to physically touch, taunt and harass the human subjects. Such displays were inherently dehumanizing, even without the abuse, and they presented extremely stereotyped, exoticized images of the cultures they were meant to represent. Galanin鈥檚 鈥淲hite Carver鈥� wryly reverses this fetishizing white gaze by placing a white woodworker on display behind a velvet rope. Galanin鈥檚 white carver whittles a piece of wood into an approximate copy of a sculpture by Galanin, which is itself not a 鈥渢raditional鈥� object at all, but a representation of a mass-produced onanistic sex toy. I witnessed the performance on opening night, and a rotating cast of white carvers will continue to perform it on select dates throughout the summer.

One of the first performances to critique such fetishized displays of Indigenous cultures was James Luna鈥檚 (Pay贸mkawichum, Ipai, and Mexican) 鈥淭he Artifact Piece,鈥� in which the artist placed himself inside a plexiglas display case like a specimen in an anthropological museum. Luna first performed 鈥淭he Artifact Piece鈥� in 1987, then subsequently 鈥済ifted鈥� it to his student, Erica Lord (Athabaskan/I帽upiaq), who performed it in 2008 and a number of times thereafter, including at SITE Santa Fe last weekend.

The work is just as compelling when the artist is not present, since the sand-filled display case remains imprinted with Lord鈥檚 body 鈥� keeping her memory alive, as it were 鈥� while a card inside states, 鈥淥bject temporarily removed for possible repatriation.鈥� The tongue-in-cheek museum text turns the display case into a veritable Schr枚dinger鈥檚 box, where we imagine the artist-as-object as both repatriated and not. But what does it even mean for a person to be 鈥渞epatriated鈥� to a land that neither she nor her ancestors ever left?

Other museum labels attached to the perimeter of the display case thread the needle between wry humor and sincere self-representation. One describes her earrings and nose rings as 鈥渘ot traditional Athabaskan or I帽upiaq jewelry鈥� but items that 鈥渕ay have been acquired through trading or gifting.鈥� Lord鈥檚 鈥淭he Artifact Piece, Revisited鈥� occupies a room with works by her mentor, Luna, including a conceptual photography project that uses humor to address his struggles with alcohol use disorder. Their juxtaposition creates an interesting intergenerational dialogue.

Although I have focused mainly on performance-oriented works in this review, most of the art in 鈥淚ndian Theater鈥� is object-based: paintings, sculptures and photographs. To be honest, this confused me at first. Yes, there is video documentation of performances by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee), the feminist troupe Spiderwoman Theater and others. But for an exhibition with 鈥渢heater鈥� in its title, there weren鈥檛 nearly as many theatrical or performance-oriented works as I had expected.

After returning to the show multiple times, it finally dawned on me: if the 鈥渢heater鈥� is invisible, maybe I鈥檓 the one performing.

Had I been approaching the exhibition through the lens of an exorcizing white gaze, expecting Indigenous artists or actors to 鈥減erform鈥� for me? The exhibition subverts those expectations, reflecting my own gaze back at me.

In some cases, the 鈥減erformance鈥� must be imagined. 鈥淒etroit Danger鈥� by Nico Williams (Anishinaabe), for instance, consists of thousands of meticulously hand-beaded glass bugle beads threaded into the form of a long roll of police tape. It鈥檚 up to us to imagine the artist marking off space with the beaded tape 鈥� or hand-beading the piece as a form of endurance art. If police tape speaks in a language of exclusion, does Williams鈥� meticulous craft represent care, inclusion and healing?

Even when Lord puts her body front and center in 鈥淭he Artifact Piece, Revisited,鈥� it remains inert throughout the performance, forcing us to notice our own behaviors and those of the people around us. Are we getting too close? Do we resist the urge to take photos? Does the mere act of looking implicate us in a neocolonial system of cultural consumption? The artist remains still, while we perform our whiteness. Even some Indigenous visitors may be disturbed to find themselves reproducing a colonial gaze in the denaturalized context of the museum. In her self-reflexive theater, Lord is the stage, and we are the performers.

Most of the work in 鈥淚ndian Theater鈥� is installed at SITE Santa Fe, but there are a few pieces at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, as well, including a sculptural installation and video documentation of Cannupa Hanska Luger鈥檚 (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota) 鈥淢irror Shield Project.鈥� More than any other piece in the show, the 鈥淢irror Shield Project鈥� carries the ideals of both the Native Theater and Native Self-Determination movements into the 21st century.

Luger designed his shields in 2016 as practical protective devices for activists from his own Standing Rock Sioux community who were intent on protecting their waterways from the incursion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. But the shields were also used in a beautiful, site-specific performance, 鈥淲ater Serpent Action,鈥� in collaboration with Rory Wakemup (Anishinaabe), who drew inspiration from traditional movement and dance practices, just as the Native Theater artists had a half-century earlier. Performance art, activism and ritual come together in Luger鈥檚 work in an exceptionally powerful way.

Luger鈥檚 mirrors are shiny enough to reflect light and color but not shiny enough to reflect crisp images. So, he makes us aware of ourselves, and our movements, but subsumes our individual identities within a hazy fog of shadows. Like many of the works in 鈥淚ndian Theater,鈥� the 鈥淢irror Shield Project鈥� intercepts our gaze but keeps it suspended between opacity and clarity, ignorance and truth, forcing us to confront the limitations of our own perspectives.

First presented at Bard College鈥檚 Center for Curatorial Studies in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 2023, 鈥淚ndian Theater鈥� may have an even greater resonance here in New Mexico, where the Native Theater movement originated. Anyone interested in exploring that history and its connection to Indigenous performance art today may want to pick up a copy of Hopkins鈥� 鈥淣ative Visual Sovereignty,鈥� which is not a conventional exhibition catalog but a 560-page illustrated reader on Indigenous art and performance from the foundational IAIA texts referenced in the exhibition to the latest contributions to the discourse by leading artists, curators and scholars. If you come out of the exhibition, as I did, with more questions than answers, 鈥淣ative Visual Sovereignty鈥� is a great resource for further study.

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .