WHEN:
Jan 31–Feb 1, 2025 | 7:30 pm
WHERE:
Edlis Neeson Theater
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611
TICKETS:
For more information and tickets visit the MCA website.
CREATIVE TEAM:
Elisa Harkins, visual artist and musician; Kalyn Fay, songwriter and musician; Laura Paige Kyber, Assistant Curator of Performance
A spokesperson describes the event as follows:
“...Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ, is an ongoing performance project by visual artist and musician Elisa Harkins featuring her original, upbeat electronic dance music and more contemplative moments of hymns, both with lyrics in Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and English. As an act of Indigenous Futurism, the concert-like project upholds the use of Indigenous language through combining it with disco live performance, preservation on pressed vinyl, and radio play. At the MCA, Harkins will appear with two back-up dancers and musical guests Danny Wesley and Kalyn Fay.
Some of the music in the performance is inspired by Daniel Chazanoff’s twentieth-century transcriptions of Indigenous songs. The title, Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ, refers to Wampum belts and beads, used by the Cherokee as currency and more broadly by Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands to mark agreements between people. ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ, pronounced “a-de-la diga-gu-di,” can be translated to “money on a string.” The work is intended to create a metaphorical peacekeeping agreement between audience members, regardless of race or tribe.
In the week before the concert, Harkins will lead a community drum making workshop at the Center for Native Futures..."
