Bright Sounds: Conversation with Laura Ortman

Broken Boxes met up with musician and composer Laura Ortman during her Artist Residency at the Institute of American Indian Arts for this episode where we chatted about her long love affair with the violin, how music has supported her in navigating the ups and downs in life and the value of the violin in contributing to collaboration and transcending art mediums. Laura reflects on how she stays centered while constantly traveling as a practicing artist and she speaks about being DIY to a fault, how she is learning to accept support from community, grants and residencies along the way. She shares about her upcoming album and the components she put forward in creating the record, including songwriting and archival field recordings. We hear a bit about a recent performance at SITE Santa Fe - which was days away when we recorded this broadcast - and where she performed a site specific performance on artist Pedro Reyes’ Disarm Violin, an instrument made from decommissioned gun parts. She spoke to the importance of long term collaborative relationships as a way to sustain community connections and combat isolation and offered some sound advice to not throw away ideas that don’t resonate in the moment, to be patient with the process, and come back to a work that isn’t quite fitting in the now. As we spoke, the artists' effect pedals and violin were set up around us and we ended the broadcast with Laura sharing a powerful live mini performance session. 

Laura Ortman, a member of the White Mountain Apache tribe, is a musician and composer who creates across multiple platforms, including albums, live performance, field recordings, and video works. As a soloist, Ortman performs on amplified and Apache violin, vocals, piano, electric guitar, and keyboard. She has performed and presented work nationally and internationally at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2021); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2019); the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, Toronto, Canada (2017, 2011); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Canada (2017); and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2009). Ortman is a 2022 recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship.

Listen to Laura’s work on Bandcamp

Dark Symphony: Conversation with India Sky

In this episode we hear from multidisciplinary artist India Sky whose art practice of music, moving image, installation, dance and performance investigates the invisible forces of ancestry, power and spirit that shape her experience, and engages radical imagination as a source for transformation, communion, homecoming, liberation, and survival. Her work as a stage and video/film director, producer, choreographer and performer is guided by her passion for world making and her practice of creating and contributing to platforms that uplift Black, queer and femme voices.  India received a BA in Theater with a minor in Media Arts from Antioch College in 2008 and an MA in Artist Film and Moving Image from Goldsmiths University of London in 2020.

Somewhere Over The Mystic Moon releases February 5, 2023 and is the premiere full length album by India Sky. Image credit: Ethan Lyles

In our conversation, India shares about the journey to her debut album, Somewhere Over The Mystic Moon, which will be available everywhere February 5th 2023. We also chat about how she has activated music and performance throughout her life, how she accesses pole dancing as a conduit between worlds and holds deep respect for the craft as an endurance practice. We learn of her reverence for the ancestors from the disco era, her foundational work with Queer and BIPOC Circus Arts and India unpacks how she continues to engage somatic therapy through her art, tending to the vulnerability inherent in performance while finding joy and empowerment in the work. Our conversation also expands to acknowledging the body as a guide for understanding self, how creativity is a way to connect with a power that is beyond self and that our perception of the world is our own.  In ending our conversation India shares resources around African cosmogram, Afro Surrealism, the incredible Queer and Black Femme art and music scene in Oakland and she gifts a bit of knowledge on how utilizing the moon cycle can act as an accountability mechanism to check into our intentions monthly.

Learn more about India Sky and her work and music on her website

Song Featured: Dark Symphony from Over The Mystic Moon by India Sky

Long Con: Sterlin Harjo & Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ep 4

Long Con is a series of conversations between Director Sterlin Harjo and Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger about life, art, film, history and everything in between - informally shared from the lens of two contemporary Native American artists and friends actively participating in the record of the 21st century.

In this almost 3 hour long episode and the fourth conversation between Harjo and Luger on Broken Boxes, the artists speak on hunting, vulnerability, taxes, land, fatherhood, facing becoming celebrity, growing up poor, fathers and their love language, the familiarity with relatives in prison, Reservation Dogs Season 2, Sterlin’s uncle Marty’s laugh, taking the time to call your friends and check in, Film Noir, Cannupa’s hats, fashion, ghosts, the art world, normalizing therapy to control inner chaos, writing versus directing, confronting the darkness in life, alcohol consumption, the Gotham Awards, and artmaking and what part of the process brings the most joy and what is the hardest point in the creative journey.

Sterlin Harjo is an award winning Seminole/Muscogee Creek filmmaker who has directed three feature films and a feature documentary all of which address the contemporary Native American lived experience. Harjo is a founding member of the five-member Native American comedy group, The 1491s. Sterlin’s latest project Reservation Dogs, is a television show created in collaboration with Taika Waititi, now available to watch on FX. 

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist who creates monumental and situational installations and durational performance and often initiates community participation and social collaboration. Raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, he is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and is of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota descent. 

Featured Song: Can’t Wait by Labrys

Finding The Words: Conversation with Elisa Harkins

In this episode of Broken Boxes we talk about the life and current projects of Cherokee/Muscogee artist and composer Elisa Harkins. From her experience of being an adopted child to surviving a near fatal bike accident, Elisa shares both foundational and vulnerable life experiences which gave her strength as an artist. Elisa also reflects on grad school, noting artists who inspired her through insight and mentorship. We speak on how she has used language as a tool in her practice and as a way to access belonging and participation in community. She walks us through Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ, a collaborative performance project which recently toured Europe. In closing, Elisa reminds us that as we strive to do things in a good way as creatives, we should also not be afraid to take a chance on bold ideas that push our comfort levels.  

Elisa Harkins for Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ

Elisa Harkins is a Native American (Cherokee/Muscogee) artist and composer based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Cherokee and Mvskoke languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the body as her tools.  She is the first person to use the Cherokee language in a pop song.  Harkins received a BA from Columbia College, Chicago, and an MFA from CalArts. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work at Crystal Bridges, documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, The Heard Museum, and MoMA.  

In 2020, She created an online Indigenous concert series called 6 Moons and published a CD of Muscogee (Creek)/Seminole Hymns. She is also the DJ of Mvhayv Radio, an Indigenous radio show on 99.1FM in Indianapolis, IN, and streaming from OK#1 in Tulsa, OK. Radio III / ᎦᏬᏂᏍᎩ ᏦᎢ is a dance performance that features music and choreography by Harkins. With support from PICA and Western Front, songs from the performance have been collected into a limited edition double LP, which can be found on Harkins’ Bandcamp. Harkins resides on the Muscogee (Creek) Reservation and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

Song Featured: Deadly by Elisa Harkins

Ingeniero social: Conversation with Guadalupe Maravilla

Guadalupe Maravilla is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. In 2016, Maravilla became a U.S. citizen and adopted the name Guadalupe Maravilla in solidarity with his undocumented father, who uses Maravilla as his last name. As an acknowledgment to his past, Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts belonging to undocumented communities and the cancer community. 

In This episode of Broken Boxes Guadalupe Maravilla speaks with Cannupa Hanska Luger about the current creation story of Mariposa Relámpago, a school bus being reworked into a new healing sound work. The artist reflects how this bus’ artwork journey is becoming so much more including multiple communities involvements, several countries and even a volcano. We hear how migration routes are reflected throughout the visual language of Guadalupe’s practice, including the autobiographical nature of the artist's own migration story as a child. Guadalupe unpacks a bit on how he strives to create sustainable micro economies through his artmaking process and we hear about how his art practice also becomes a vessel of support for new asylum seekers arriving in NYC, while in tandem the artworks provide sound healing for those recovering from trauma, including centering healing for cancer survivors.Rounding out the conversation Guadalupe shares how maintaining wellbeing for mind, spirit and body through daily ritual aids in the strength needed to continue to carry the work and support forward, and emplores us to find time in our daily life to nurture inner health. 

Please visit the following link to donate to Guadalupe’s efforts in supporting new asylum seekers arriving in NYC. gofund.me/396e7d27

Artist website: https://www.guadalupemaravilla.com
Artist IG: https://www.instagram.com/guadalupe__maravilla/
Song featured: La Democracia by the artist Very Be Careful