In the Lounge Femme Fest 2020 (A Shared Bill) Sarah Sanders & Helen Gutowski
Helen Gutowski
Sigooxgiya – It Means Black Hole in Siksika
Helen wrote this poem after learning that LIGO captured an image of two Black Holes colliding; they released an official announcement through NASA to commemorate the historic event. The press release was available in several languages, including Siksika, the language of the Siksika people, a First Nation in Alberta, Canada. This is one of the first official US government documents released in an indigenous language ever. The document included new words in the Siksika language for things like ‘Gravitational Wave’ and ‘Black Hole.’ The words were coined by tribal elders and a Siksika NASA employee. Inspired by this linguistic and celestial Death/Birth, ‘Sigooxghiya…’ is the incarnation of these colliding worlds.
Helen Gutowski is a performing artist, writer, and activist working in the experimental theater, post modern dance, performance art, poetry, and academic theory. Alumnus of the EmergeNYC program (2015.) BFA in Acting from the Experimental Theater Wing, NYU (2013) and MA in Performance Studies, NYU (2018.) She honors the Siksika Nation as well as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory for their contributions to this performance, to science, and to society. References also include Ken Burns’ The West.
Photo credit: Manny Mendoza
Sarah Sanders
In My Name
My name is Sarah Sanders. Like the press secretary. My last name would have been Schneiderman but my great-grandfather changed it to sound less Jewish. And here I am, a white, queer, ritual-craving, anti-Zionist Jew from Montana who shares a name with a white nationalist apologist. ‘In My Name’ is a mostly-solo theatre piece using ritual, personal narrative, interviews, original music, and emails to the press secretary to grapple with the ways that whiteness and American Jewish identity intersect— and to ask (where) does spirituality fit into all this?! There will be challah.
Sarah Sanders (she/her) is a performer, writer, musician, and emergent strategy advocate raised in Montana and based in Brooklyn. Sarah is currently a Performance Fellow with the Queer|Art|Mentorship program and a lyricist with the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. She has developed new work with The Bengsons, the Satori Group, the Hearth, and Undiscovered Countries. Sarah has a BA from Williams College and an MFA in acting from LAMDA.
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Credits
In My Name
Writer and performer
Sarah Sanders
Sigooxgiya – It Means Black Hole in Siksika