May 3, 2024 • 23 mins
This episode of The Brulé Chronicles unravels an extraordinary personal journey. Host Paul LaRoche recounts his life story, beginning with his adoption from birth as a Native American child and how he discovered his true heritage after his adoptive parents' death - a revelation that helped him reconnect with his biological family and Native American roots.
In 1993, a heartwarming reunion with his biological Lakota family embarked him and his wife, Kathy, on an incredible journey into the heart of Native America - a journey that ultimately led to the birth of the popular Native American music group, Brulé.
Despite initial setbacks, Brulé’s unique blend of traditional tribal music and classical rock carved a niche for them in the music industry, stirring waves beyond their Lower Brule Sioux Indian Reservation home in South Dakota to nation-wide recognition.
The episode titled "Tribe" encapsulates the story of an exciting musical project three years after the start of Brulé in 1998. Balancing the pressures of recording new music albums and staging performances at small events, Paul received a surprising offer that promised a significant leap in his career: a role as a music composer for a new musical project.
Brulé’s adventurous journey to create the Broadway-style musical, 'Tribe,' faced obstacles from skeptics and critics alike. Yet, their undaunted spirit fueled their mission to create a performance that encompassed the experiences and culture of Native America.
In a touching interview with Minnesota Public Radio in 1998, Paul spoke about the challenges and rewards of bringing native traditions and contemporary music together, while keenly aware of the fine balance needed to respect his heritage.
This episode brings to light the burgeoning potential of Native people in the entertainment industry, a stepping stone to inspire young people to explore the performing arts. From humble beginnings, through trials and tribulations, the story of Brulé is one of resilience, reconciliation, and triumph.
Join us on this enriching journey that transcends music and heritage. Discover the story that unites us all through the transformative power of music and shared human experiences.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Occasionally an event occurs of such significance that it forever changes the.
Way you perceive life itself, as though a veil has been lifted and the clarity
and purpose of your life become obvious.
In November of 1993, such an event occurred for my family and I.
I was one of the Native American children adopted at birth and removed from
(00:23):
the reservation system.
As fate would have it, I was raised by a wonderful family and grew up in southwest Minnesota.
I lost both adoptive parents in 1987.
It was then that my wife, Kathy, discovered my adoption papers that had been hidden for years.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1993, I was reunited with my biological Lakota family.
(00:49):
Neither of us had known the other had existed all those years.
So began our incredible journey back into Native America.
This is our story.
Music.
This is episode number two of what we call the Brulee Chronicles,
(01:12):
the story behind our Native American group, Brulee.
For podcast listeners who may not be familiar with Brulee,
you've heard our introduction to each podcast episode explaining our story of
how I was reunited with my biological Native American family after 38 years of separation.
(01:32):
Our homecoming was held on Thanksgiving of 1993, and it was our new family that
encouraged us to return back into the music business of which,
out of frustration, I had given up on at that point.
In fact, the origins of the Brulee sound and eventual music of Brulee was born
right there on the Lower Brule Sioux Indian Reservation of South Dakota.
(01:56):
It occurred seamlessly that following summer as I attended several of my first
powwows on the reservation, where this new tribal music morphed with the classical
rock that I had grown up with.
This episode is called Tribe, not because of any tribal affiliation that I now
assume or the fact that I am now an enrolled member of an American Indian tribe,
(02:20):
but this episode of Brule Chronicles is about a musical project that occurred in 1998,
three years after the start of Brule.
Allow me to set the scene. At that time, we were living on the Lower Brule Sioux
Indian Reservation, but I was stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
working on one of the early brulee CDs called One Nation.
(02:46):
I was recording at the record company's recording studio along with drummer
Chuck Davis and daughter Nicole.
Nicole and I had just finished working on a fledgling theater project called
Black Elk Speaks, which was a musical adaptation of the book Black Elk Speaks,
which was written by John Neihardt.
(03:08):
That project was short-lived, and so we moved on to the next Brulee recording
project in Albuquerque.
Back in those days, we were also just starting out performing at small events and art shows.
Out of the blue one evening, a call came in from some friends in St.
Paul that said there was a musical project in the works and that I was under
(03:29):
consideration for the role of music composer.
Brulé was still in its infancy, so I was really quite surprised at the news.
Eventually I found out that they had heard our first CD, We the People,
and were looking for that kind of a sound.
Music.
Well, the offer was confirmed a week later. The president of the record company
(03:52):
was less than happy about the news, and he put the skids on that recording project, One Nation.
Trying to maintain our enthusiasm, we packed up our gear and headed for St. Paul.
The producers of the project had high expectations, and they were hoping that
the musical might make its way to Broadway.
After all, the executive producer, a guy by the name of Kevin McCollum,
(04:17):
was the director of the prestigious Ordway Music Theatre in St.
Paul, and he had just finished producing a little musical project that you may
have heard of. It was called Rent.
Yep, the same Rent musical that went on to become a Broadway smash hit.
I was overwhelmed actually, but once I got my bearings, I went to work on the music.
(04:40):
Following is an interview by Minnesota Public Radio, just as it was heard back in 1998.
And this was just prior to the premiere of the musical Tribe. Let's take a listen.
At St. Paul's Ordway Theater tonight that combines traditional and contemporary
Native American dance and music with Broadway-style production values.
(05:01):
It's called Tribe, and its producers hope it will give American Indian performers
an entree to large-scale mainstream theaters.
And maybe become the next river dance in the process.
Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts reports. For those who've only seen Native
American performances wrapped in buckskin, topped with headdresses,
(05:22):
and enveloped in Native drumming and chanting, get ready for Tribe.
Not that there isn't plenty of buckskin, feathers, buffalo hide drumming,
wooden flutes, and traditional singing, but there's also electric guitars,
synthesizers, hip-hop moves, and rocking ballads like you might hear on AOR radio.
Tribe Story is an updated version of the American Indian myth of the conflict
(05:46):
between the sacred twins, Sun and Moon, for the love of Earth,
the daughter of First Woman.
In this retelling, Sun is an urban Indian and Moon is a traditional Indian.
When the Sun, Moon, and Earth love triangle threatens to tear the society apart,
Sun and Moon are asked to leave and not come back until they find peace in their
(06:07):
hearts so the world can again be one.
Music.
(06:32):
Matt Zeman says as he walks Tribe, the layers unfold.
The tagline of the show is, two worlds, one tribe.
When you're looking at the stage, you can say, oh, okay, well,
what they mean is that you have the city Indians and you have your traditional Indians.
Or you can take another step back and say, if you're looking at the theater,
you can say what they mean is the Indian world and the non-Indian world.
(06:54):
You can take another step back and say it's dark-skinned African Americans and
light-skinned African Americans.
It's Catholic and Protestants. Zeman, who's part Catholic and part Jewish,
helped orchestrate President Clinton's 1994 meeting in Washington with 545 federally
recognized tribal leaders.
His company, Red Sky Productions, had been working on an original large-scale
(07:17):
native production for at least a year when it became partners with the Ordway
last February and was brought in to develop Tribe. tribe.
The Ordway then introduced Red Sky Productions to the American Indian recording artist Brule.
Brule is a Lakota who was given up for adoption when he was a baby.
He was raised in a white middle-class home in southwest Minnesota as Paul Summers
(07:41):
and didn't discover his heritage and his biological family until he was 39,
after his adoptive parents had died.
This show, to me, the theme of which is two worlds, one tribe.
That's really a story of our life. We've lived in both of those worlds.
I grew up in southwest Minnesota. Now we've moved back home and live on the
(08:03):
reservation and have gone through a journey of assimilation back into my Lakota culture.
Music.
When do I become a friend?
(08:27):
Some of the music Brulee has composed for Tribe might be described as a melding
of Lakota and Ojibwe sounds and melodies with U2 or Peter Gabriel song structures.
At other times, the score is unabashedly reminiscent of rock musicals, such as Rent.
In blending traditional Indian and contemporary music, Brulé knows he's walking
(08:51):
a tightrope, especially with Native communities.
From the moment I started my musical journey and started to combine traditional
and contemporary music, I realized early on that you aren't going to make everybody happy.
At the same time, it isn't fair for our generation and generations to follow,
(09:11):
to try to live completely in the past.
We need to open some doors here, particularly for the generations to follow.
Like the music, the dancing in Tribe borrows from several native traditions,
including fancy dance, spear and shield, and hoop dancing.
(09:33):
Director Raul Trujillo, who's Apache and Mexican, says Tribe deliberately moves
away from replicating specific traditional dances.
That's museum dancing then.
And that's not what we're doing. So we've actually just borrowed from the movement
vocabulary itself and then created dances based on that movement vocabulary.
(09:53):
Tribe singers, dancers, and musicians are almost exclusively Native American,
representing more than 15 tribes from across North America.
They're out to prove that Native
performance traditions and Broadway glitz are far from incompatible.
Composer Brulee points to another well-known production that successfully uses
(10:15):
a Broadway stage and production values to celebrate Celtic tradition.
I mean, look at what Riverdance has done.
You know, now is that Broadway? It's a fine line somewhere between Broadway and this new...
Kind of what I call performing arts synthesis has taken place that really combines
dance and music and message.
(10:37):
It's not quite a play, it's not quite a musical, but it is a performance,
and it is a theatrical performance.
And yet the producers of Tribe are weary of the suggestion that the production
is trying to cash in on the incredible success of Riverdance,
or Lord of the Dance, Matt Zeman.
We are exactly opposite of that formula. We did not come into this and say,
(10:59):
let's get a whole bunch of Indians and put them up on stage and put some fancy
outfits on them. And then we'll write some music and throw some lighting and film it and get on TV.
Zeman says Tribe started out with a desire to break down stereotypes and show business barriers.
And then a story was developed, a story he believes the world needs to hear.
(11:21):
Director Raul Trajillo says the only thing Tribe has in common with Riverdance
is both productions are bringing traditional dance and music to the mainstream stage.
Theirs is a story of coming to America.
Ours is a story of being in America and really presenting a worldview that's
(11:41):
just different from non-Native people.
The Ordway has hired a New York booking agency and has invited presenters from
across the country to sample the show this weekend and see if they might want
to include it in their 1999-2000 seasons.
But according to composer Brule, what's more important about Tribe is its potential
(12:02):
to open doors to the entertainment industry for Native people.
We need to initiate theater programs in our tribal communities.
We need to find a way for our young people to become inspired,
to move into these areas of the performing arts.
And it just doesn't really exist right now.
(12:23):
When the curtain opens tonight, Boulay says it will be a historic event for
Native America and predicts it will have a great impact on the generations to follow.
Tribe runs tonight through Sunday at the Ordway's McKnight Theater in St.
Paul. This is Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio.
Music.
(13:47):
I spent about five weeks writing and recording the music, during which time
I suffered a back injury that required surgery.
So most of my writing was done under severe pain, on medication,
and eventually I was recovering from back surgery. But I got the job done.
I thought it would be fun to play a short, never-before-heard demo of the main
(14:10):
musical theme just the way I presented it to the producers.
Here's that short demo.
Music.
(16:36):
The publicity began to roll out about a month before the opening night.
Following is a letter of support from the show producer and from the National
Congress of American Indians.
It reads like this.
Message from the tribe director. Dance and everything referred to as art is
(16:58):
a reflection of culture.
The word art does not exist in Indian language. The expression of art was and
is a result of living in the world of the Creator.
It is not seen and experienced as something separate from ordinary life. It is life.
For as long as anyone can remember, the indigenous people of North America have danced.
(17:24):
With the arrival of Europeans 500 years ago, the westward expansion of Christianity,
and the evolutionary process of dance in America was forced to take a different path.
Instead of an organic evolution, the development of indigenous dance became
secretive and subversive in nature, disguised through the new religion imposed on the population.
(17:50):
Many of the traditional dances and songs were not allowed. They were even made
illegal if not performed under the approval of the church and the government.
It was during these Americanizing campaigns that dances of the First People were lost.
Other cultural identities, such as language and song, were drastically altered.
(18:14):
During this century, Native dance has inspired many non-Native artists to emulate
those dances in contemporary theatrical presentations.
What we are doing with Tribe is reclaiming our organic evolutionary right to
make dance from life experiences and from philosophical and spiritual perspectives.
(18:35):
Music.
That are uniquely Native.
We translate this through a vocabulary of Indigenous movement and language.
In Tribe, we have native dancers from across the U.S., Mexico,
Canada, including Hawaii.
We use a wide range and diversity of movement.
(18:56):
Tribe is clearly theatrical and not an authentic ceremony.
I call it ceremonial theater. Tribe is a cultural hybrid, honoring our roots
with dignity and truth, and sharing
with you a glimpse of the world from a perspective of the First People.
Celebrate with us in this true spirit.
(19:17):
Music.
(19:42):
A reality. The combination of quality and commitment to this stage production
makes this world premiere an historic and exciting moment for our people.
Through your intertribal cast and your native director, choreographer,
composer, music director, and costume designer,
Tribe brings to audiences worldwide a new understanding of American Indians
(20:07):
through the power of theater.
It is through presentations like Tribe that people learn to see American Indians
as contemporary people living in a contemporary society with a strong traditional heritage.
Tribe is an important project for all of Indian country and I wish you much success for its future.
(20:29):
Congratulations from the National Congress of American Indians.
The show opened for a three-night debut at Ordway's McKnight Theatre.
As fate would have it, the reviews were marginal and the show slowly slipped into obscurity.
But the experience was invaluable and became a vital part for the rest of the Brulee journey.
(20:55):
The Tribe cast was excellent, but the lesson that I learned was that no matter
how good the individual contributors are, The musical is nothing without an
important and captivating storyline.
I suggested at the onset about the idea of using the Brule storyline,
the story of adoption, discovery, reunion, and reconciliation of the cultures.
(21:20):
But it was considered too personal and was scrapped for the final storyline,
which consisted of the sacred twins, the sun and the moon.
Music.
(21:41):
The profound lessons that we came away with were invaluable for the brulee journey
that we were about to embark on.
As the years went by, we remained true to our calling and true to our story.
Our music always came from the heart and was never intended to be a commercial hit.
(22:01):
And the storyline simply followed our life and our quest to work on peace,
hope, and reconciliation of the cultures.
Music.
Over the years, I came to close each concert with these few words.
Remember, we are all very closely connected. I am living proof of that.
(22:25):
Tonight, we sat here for just a few moments, and regardless of the color of our skin,
our political persuasions, or our religious denominations, we sat side by side.
Music.
Brothers and sisters, one heart, one mind, and one body,
for the greater good of all humans and in service of our Creator.
(22:49):
The Lakota have a saying, Matakoi Oyasin.
Translated, it simply means we are all related.
Thank you very much. Don't forget to follow our podcast and share us with your friends.
I'm Paul LaRouche and you're listening to Hidden Heritage.
(23:10):
Music.
Occasionally an event occurs of such significance that it forever changes the.
Way you perceive life itself, as though a veil has been lifted and the clarity
and purpose of your life become obvious.
In November of 1993, such an event occurred for my family and I.
I was one of the Native American children adopted at birth and removed from
(00:23):
the reservation system.
As fate would have it, I was raised by a wonderful family and grew up in southwest Minnesota.
I lost both adoptive parents in 1987.
It was then that my wife, Kathy, discovered my adoption papers that had been hidden for years.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1993, I was reunited with my biological Lakota family.
(00:49):
Neither of us had known the other had existed all those years.
So began our incredible journey back into Native America.
This is our story.
Music.
This is episode number two of what we call the Brulee Chronicles,
(01:12):
the story behind our Native American group, Brulee.
For podcast listeners who may not be familiar with Brulee,
you've heard our introduction to each podcast episode explaining our story of
how I was reunited with my biological Native American family after 38 years of separation.
(01:32):
Our homecoming was held on Thanksgiving of 1993, and it was our new family that
encouraged us to return back into the music business of which,
out of frustration, I had given up on at that point.
In fact, the origins of the Brulee sound and eventual music of Brulee was born
right there on the Lower Brule Sioux Indian Reservation of South Dakota.
(01:56):
It occurred seamlessly that following summer as I attended several of my first
powwows on the reservation, where this new tribal music morphed with the classical
rock that I had grown up with.
This episode is called Tribe, not because of any tribal affiliation that I now
assume or the fact that I am now an enrolled member of an American Indian tribe,
(02:20):
but this episode of Brule Chronicles is about a musical project that occurred in 1998,
three years after the start of Brule.
Allow me to set the scene. At that time, we were living on the Lower Brule Sioux
Indian Reservation, but I was stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
working on one of the early brulee CDs called One Nation.
(02:46):
I was recording at the record company's recording studio along with drummer
Chuck Davis and daughter Nicole.
Nicole and I had just finished working on a fledgling theater project called
Black Elk Speaks, which was a musical adaptation of the book Black Elk Speaks,
which was written by John Neihardt.
(03:08):
That project was short-lived, and so we moved on to the next Brulee recording
project in Albuquerque.
Back in those days, we were also just starting out performing at small events and art shows.
Out of the blue one evening, a call came in from some friends in St.
Paul that said there was a musical project in the works and that I was under
(03:29):
consideration for the role of music composer.
Brulé was still in its infancy, so I was really quite surprised at the news.
Eventually I found out that they had heard our first CD, We the People,
and were looking for that kind of a sound.
Music.
Well, the offer was confirmed a week later. The president of the record company
(03:52):
was less than happy about the news, and he put the skids on that recording project, One Nation.
Trying to maintain our enthusiasm, we packed up our gear and headed for St. Paul.
The producers of the project had high expectations, and they were hoping that
the musical might make its way to Broadway.
After all, the executive producer, a guy by the name of Kevin McCollum,
(04:17):
was the director of the prestigious Ordway Music Theatre in St.
Paul, and he had just finished producing a little musical project that you may
have heard of. It was called Rent.
Yep, the same Rent musical that went on to become a Broadway smash hit.
I was overwhelmed actually, but once I got my bearings, I went to work on the music.
(04:40):
Following is an interview by Minnesota Public Radio, just as it was heard back in 1998.
And this was just prior to the premiere of the musical Tribe. Let's take a listen.
At St. Paul's Ordway Theater tonight that combines traditional and contemporary
Native American dance and music with Broadway-style production values.
(05:01):
It's called Tribe, and its producers hope it will give American Indian performers
an entree to large-scale mainstream theaters.
And maybe become the next river dance in the process.
Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts reports. For those who've only seen Native
American performances wrapped in buckskin, topped with headdresses,
(05:22):
and enveloped in Native drumming and chanting, get ready for Tribe.
Not that there isn't plenty of buckskin, feathers, buffalo hide drumming,
wooden flutes, and traditional singing, but there's also electric guitars,
synthesizers, hip-hop moves, and rocking ballads like you might hear on AOR radio.
Tribe Story is an updated version of the American Indian myth of the conflict
(05:46):
between the sacred twins, Sun and Moon, for the love of Earth,
the daughter of First Woman.
In this retelling, Sun is an urban Indian and Moon is a traditional Indian.
When the Sun, Moon, and Earth love triangle threatens to tear the society apart,
Sun and Moon are asked to leave and not come back until they find peace in their
(06:07):
hearts so the world can again be one.
Music.
(06:32):
Matt Zeman says as he walks Tribe, the layers unfold.
The tagline of the show is, two worlds, one tribe.
When you're looking at the stage, you can say, oh, okay, well,
what they mean is that you have the city Indians and you have your traditional Indians.
Or you can take another step back and say, if you're looking at the theater,
you can say what they mean is the Indian world and the non-Indian world.
(06:54):
You can take another step back and say it's dark-skinned African Americans and
light-skinned African Americans.
It's Catholic and Protestants. Zeman, who's part Catholic and part Jewish,
helped orchestrate President Clinton's 1994 meeting in Washington with 545 federally
recognized tribal leaders.
His company, Red Sky Productions, had been working on an original large-scale
(07:17):
native production for at least a year when it became partners with the Ordway
last February and was brought in to develop Tribe. tribe.
The Ordway then introduced Red Sky Productions to the American Indian recording artist Brule.
Brule is a Lakota who was given up for adoption when he was a baby.
He was raised in a white middle-class home in southwest Minnesota as Paul Summers
(07:41):
and didn't discover his heritage and his biological family until he was 39,
after his adoptive parents had died.
This show, to me, the theme of which is two worlds, one tribe.
That's really a story of our life. We've lived in both of those worlds.
I grew up in southwest Minnesota. Now we've moved back home and live on the
(08:03):
reservation and have gone through a journey of assimilation back into my Lakota culture.
Music.
When do I become a friend?
(08:27):
Some of the music Brulee has composed for Tribe might be described as a melding
of Lakota and Ojibwe sounds and melodies with U2 or Peter Gabriel song structures.
At other times, the score is unabashedly reminiscent of rock musicals, such as Rent.
In blending traditional Indian and contemporary music, Brulé knows he's walking
(08:51):
a tightrope, especially with Native communities.
From the moment I started my musical journey and started to combine traditional
and contemporary music, I realized early on that you aren't going to make everybody happy.
At the same time, it isn't fair for our generation and generations to follow,
(09:11):
to try to live completely in the past.
We need to open some doors here, particularly for the generations to follow.
Like the music, the dancing in Tribe borrows from several native traditions,
including fancy dance, spear and shield, and hoop dancing.
(09:33):
Director Raul Trujillo, who's Apache and Mexican, says Tribe deliberately moves
away from replicating specific traditional dances.
That's museum dancing then.
And that's not what we're doing. So we've actually just borrowed from the movement
vocabulary itself and then created dances based on that movement vocabulary.
(09:53):
Tribe singers, dancers, and musicians are almost exclusively Native American,
representing more than 15 tribes from across North America.
They're out to prove that Native
performance traditions and Broadway glitz are far from incompatible.
Composer Brulee points to another well-known production that successfully uses
(10:15):
a Broadway stage and production values to celebrate Celtic tradition.
I mean, look at what Riverdance has done.
You know, now is that Broadway? It's a fine line somewhere between Broadway and this new...
Kind of what I call performing arts synthesis has taken place that really combines
dance and music and message.
(10:37):
It's not quite a play, it's not quite a musical, but it is a performance,
and it is a theatrical performance.
And yet the producers of Tribe are weary of the suggestion that the production
is trying to cash in on the incredible success of Riverdance,
or Lord of the Dance, Matt Zeman.
We are exactly opposite of that formula. We did not come into this and say,
(10:59):
let's get a whole bunch of Indians and put them up on stage and put some fancy
outfits on them. And then we'll write some music and throw some lighting and film it and get on TV.
Zeman says Tribe started out with a desire to break down stereotypes and show business barriers.
And then a story was developed, a story he believes the world needs to hear.
(11:21):
Director Raul Trajillo says the only thing Tribe has in common with Riverdance
is both productions are bringing traditional dance and music to the mainstream stage.
Theirs is a story of coming to America.
Ours is a story of being in America and really presenting a worldview that's
(11:41):
just different from non-Native people.
The Ordway has hired a New York booking agency and has invited presenters from
across the country to sample the show this weekend and see if they might want
to include it in their 1999-2000 seasons.
But according to composer Brule, what's more important about Tribe is its potential
(12:02):
to open doors to the entertainment industry for Native people.
We need to initiate theater programs in our tribal communities.
We need to find a way for our young people to become inspired,
to move into these areas of the performing arts.
And it just doesn't really exist right now.
(12:23):
When the curtain opens tonight, Boulay says it will be a historic event for
Native America and predicts it will have a great impact on the generations to follow.
Tribe runs tonight through Sunday at the Ordway's McKnight Theater in St.
Paul. This is Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio.
Music.
(13:47):
I spent about five weeks writing and recording the music, during which time
I suffered a back injury that required surgery.
So most of my writing was done under severe pain, on medication,
and eventually I was recovering from back surgery. But I got the job done.
I thought it would be fun to play a short, never-before-heard demo of the main
(14:10):
musical theme just the way I presented it to the producers.
Here's that short demo.
Music.
(16:36):
The publicity began to roll out about a month before the opening night.
Following is a letter of support from the show producer and from the National
Congress of American Indians.
It reads like this.
Message from the tribe director. Dance and everything referred to as art is
(16:58):
a reflection of culture.
The word art does not exist in Indian language. The expression of art was and
is a result of living in the world of the Creator.
It is not seen and experienced as something separate from ordinary life. It is life.
For as long as anyone can remember, the indigenous people of North America have danced.
(17:24):
With the arrival of Europeans 500 years ago, the westward expansion of Christianity,
and the evolutionary process of dance in America was forced to take a different path.
Instead of an organic evolution, the development of indigenous dance became
secretive and subversive in nature, disguised through the new religion imposed on the population.
(17:50):
Many of the traditional dances and songs were not allowed. They were even made
illegal if not performed under the approval of the church and the government.
It was during these Americanizing campaigns that dances of the First People were lost.
Other cultural identities, such as language and song, were drastically altered.
(18:14):
During this century, Native dance has inspired many non-Native artists to emulate
those dances in contemporary theatrical presentations.
What we are doing with Tribe is reclaiming our organic evolutionary right to
make dance from life experiences and from philosophical and spiritual perspectives.
(18:35):
Music.
That are uniquely Native.
We translate this through a vocabulary of Indigenous movement and language.
In Tribe, we have native dancers from across the U.S., Mexico,
Canada, including Hawaii.
We use a wide range and diversity of movement.
(18:56):
Tribe is clearly theatrical and not an authentic ceremony.
I call it ceremonial theater. Tribe is a cultural hybrid, honoring our roots
with dignity and truth, and sharing
with you a glimpse of the world from a perspective of the First People.
Celebrate with us in this true spirit.
(19:17):
Music.
(19:42):
A reality. The combination of quality and commitment to this stage production
makes this world premiere an historic and exciting moment for our people.
Through your intertribal cast and your native director, choreographer,
composer, music director, and costume designer,
Tribe brings to audiences worldwide a new understanding of American Indians
(20:07):
through the power of theater.
It is through presentations like Tribe that people learn to see American Indians
as contemporary people living in a contemporary society with a strong traditional heritage.
Tribe is an important project for all of Indian country and I wish you much success for its future.
(20:29):
Congratulations from the National Congress of American Indians.
The show opened for a three-night debut at Ordway's McKnight Theatre.
As fate would have it, the reviews were marginal and the show slowly slipped into obscurity.
But the experience was invaluable and became a vital part for the rest of the Brulee journey.
(20:55):
The Tribe cast was excellent, but the lesson that I learned was that no matter
how good the individual contributors are, The musical is nothing without an
important and captivating storyline.
I suggested at the onset about the idea of using the Brule storyline,
the story of adoption, discovery, reunion, and reconciliation of the cultures.
(21:20):
But it was considered too personal and was scrapped for the final storyline,
which consisted of the sacred twins, the sun and the moon.
Music.
(21:41):
The profound lessons that we came away with were invaluable for the brulee journey
that we were about to embark on.
As the years went by, we remained true to our calling and true to our story.
Our music always came from the heart and was never intended to be a commercial hit.
(22:01):
And the storyline simply followed our life and our quest to work on peace,
hope, and reconciliation of the cultures.
Music.
Over the years, I came to close each concert with these few words.
Remember, we are all very closely connected. I am living proof of that.
(22:25):
Tonight, we sat here for just a few moments, and regardless of the color of our skin,
our political persuasions, or our religious denominations, we sat side by side.
Music.
Brothers and sisters, one heart, one mind, and one body,
for the greater good of all humans and in service of our Creator.
(22:49):
The Lakota have a saying, Matakoi Oyasin.
Translated, it simply means we are all related.
Thank you very much. Don't forget to follow our podcast and share us with your friends.
I'm Paul LaRouche and you're listening to Hidden Heritage.
(23:10):
Music.
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