E. Macias Illuminates the Significance of Collaboration
Listening to Dr. E. Macias describe her approaches to teaching and performing, a certain word keeps appearing: “collaboration.” Whether it’s a lecture course at the University of California, Irvine, or a solo performance she’s creating, Macias is “activating connections.” This includes connections between humans and more-than-humans, meaning animals, atmospheric elements, and land.
Macias’ investment in collaboration informs every aspect of her teaching: from the knowledge she shares to how she shares this information. Traditionally, in lecture courses, faculty members are expected to be experts on a topic, like “dance history,” and to speak about a range of styles and time periods.
In contrast, Macias’ lectures and collaborations are enriched by guests whose research spans from traditional knowledges to storytelling: Tina Calderon, a culture bearer (Tongva, Chumash, and Yoeme), is invested in, as her website says, educating people “to be good relatives to the land, waters, sacred elements and all life,” and Larry Spotted Crow Mann (citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts) is a traditional storyteller and founder of Ohketeau cultural center.
Macias also invites scholars and artists to discuss connections between creative practices and lived experiences: Sage Romero (Tovowahamatu Numu, Big Pine Paiute & Tuah-Tahi, Taos Pueblo Tribes) is an artist and founder of AkaMya Culture Group; Dr. Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Nakoda & Dakota) is a third-generation beadwork and quillwork artist, as well as an educator and historian; scholar and artist Dr. Sam Mitchell is an enrolled member of the Texas Band of Yaqui; Cuauhtémoc Peranda (Mescalero Apache, Mexika-Chichimeca/Cano; & cihuaiolo butch queen) is a scholar/artist; RainbowGlitz (Haida, Squamish, Musqueam and Black) is a member of Virago Nation All-Indigenous Burlesque, and legendary artist/educator Daystar/Rosalie Jones (Pembina Chippewa-Cree) is the founder of the first Native American modern dance company, DAYSTAR Dance, in 1980.
“It has been a great honor to host and be in touch with these people over the years,” says Macias. “They bring significant expertise and are people who are known by their communities. This way of working aims to center a decolonizing pedagogy and challenge upheld notions of who is considered an ‘expert’ or ‘master’ within institutional settings.”
For decades, choreography in university settings has tended to showcase expressive movement without taking into consideration the land on which the performance happens or the identities of the performers. When Macias illuminates connections between land, knowledge, and experience, she is highlighting a Blackfoot worldview. “We fully know because we have made it a part of our bodies, and there is language for that, shared by Betty Bastien: ‘Kii Nai’tsistomato’k Ai’stamma’tso’tsspi,’ ” she explains.
Macias’ lived experiences bring together Amskapi Piikani, A’aninin, Black/African American, and Mexican American lineages. She completed her undergraduate degree at Utah Valley University and her doctoral degree at the University of California, Riverside. Her dissertation focused on dance as a site of gender expansion, which exists in the Native American Fancy Shawl dance as well as Indigenous Burlesque.
Macias says she is “an early-stage language learner,” and acknowledges diverse dialects of Blackfoot language that are specific to the bands of the Siksikaitsitapi Blackfoot Confederacy: Kainai, Siksika, Piikani, and Amskapi Piikani. Knowing words for these concepts is vital because English words tend to simplify their meaning. “Apshkaukshin” and “passkaan” can refer to dancing that happens in social and sacred ceremonial settings. “Dance is about motion that carries life, knowledge, protocols, responsibilities, and futures in and through the body. Through motion, we push away pain and emotional scars, and sustain Indigenous life.”
Given these multifaceted purposes of dancing, when Macias creates a performance she begins with questions: “How are we approaching the land in a thoughtful way?” “What is the core of our own understanding of relationships to land when we dance?” For university students and faculty, these questions can be new: According to one study, less than one-half of 1 percent of U.S. faculty in 2022 were American Indian/Alaska Native.
When Macias teaches, she incorporates experiential learning and draws from Dr. Betty Bastien. “There is the concept that knowledge is living, and learning involves making knowledge part of the body,” says Macias. “During my first quarter teaching dance history, as someone who is navigating my own relationship to ideas about history and what traditions are upheld, there were times when I asked students to turn to their dancing and explore a text or topic through movement. For one activity, students worked in groups and created a movement in response to a given section of the reading. They shared the movement with the class and taught each other from it.”
Macias’ teaching dismantles walls between higher education and knowledge-holders outside of universities, while empowering students as co-creators of learning environments. Her collaborative approach deepens students’ awareness of their roles in creating different and more just futures. “Students are participants in these settings,” she says. “Our discussions reveal connections between disciplines as well as broader social and environmental issues outside of our classrooms.”
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