Congratulations to illioo Native Theatre!
Our friends illioo Native Theatre received some good news!
Here is a message from them:
“We are writing with good news!
Last week we received word that illioo Native Theatre has received a major grant from the Oregon Community Foundation for the continued development and production of our new play, BlueJay’s Canoe!
We are thrilled! And we are deeply grateful to all the folks — like you — who have supported our work since illioo began in 2020. We are especially grateful to Very Little Theatre for its willingness to take this leap with us as our fiscal sponsor for this project.
The OCF’s grant of $52K over two years will help us complete, workshop and produce BlueJay’s Canoe.
Here’s the project description from our grant application:
“New voices bring new stories; and new stories must be told in new ways. Our aim is to develop BlueJay’s Canoe, a play celebrating Indigenous stories and waterways, using Indigenous leadership, values and ways of working, including methods of community building, storytelling, and continuous consultation with tribal members throughout the process. The process will be led by illioo co-founders Elder Marta Clifford and Theresa May. The process will include ongoing consultation with the other culture bearers whose knowledge has already shaped the initial draft of the play (specifically, Grand Ronde, Siletz, Klamath and Chinook). Tribal protocols, such as respecting time and space in appropriate cultural ways, providing steady consultation about culture, will be incorporated into our process. Our methods will be based on Native cultural guideposts rather than Western theatre traditions and will lead to a final product that honors the storytellers and speaks from an Indigenous perspective.”
Our central goal and guiding principle in this work is to bring Indigenous ways of working into the process of theatre-making as we create a play that tells a contemporary Indigenous story. We are currently working on a revised draft of BlueJay’s Canoe, and in Fall we plan to present an informal reading of the work-in-progress for community comments and feedback. Then, back to revision and preparing for a more public concert reading of the play (also for comments and feedback) in spring 2024. Following this, we will continue to fine-tune as we work in rehearsal with a small group of Indigenous and other actors to prepare the play for production (often called “workshopping” by theatre folks), and at the same time we will begin collaborating with sound and visual designers for the production of BlueJay’s Canoe at Very Little Theatre.
Stay tuned for our November 2023 show (title to be announced soon!) presented by Minority Voices Theatre at VLT, and other projects in the works!
We’re grateful for all the ways you have supported us on this journey…
If you are able to support illioo’s work with a donation here’s how: on Very Little Theatre donation page you will find a menu by scrolling to the bottom of the page before you “checkout” — there you can designate your gift to illioo Native Theatre.
With joy and gratitude for helping spin a new world,
Theresa and Marta
Co-founders, with Lori Tapahonso, of illioo Native Theatre, under the fiscal sponsorship of Very Little Theatre, Eugene, OR