Statement for Lack of Diversity within Under Review: Katahdin

In 2017, I had the idea to create a series of films to bring awareness to the American National Monuments that President Trump had under review to open up for industrial development. From there, I carefully chose which four monuments I would devote my time and education efforts towards.

In 2018, I embarked on creating the story for the series, Under Review: Katahdin. I wanted the film to be centered around what President Trump had hoped to use the land for, which was logging. Deeply inspired by The Giving Tree written by Shel Silverstein, my vision was to bring empathy to the field of logging by telling the story of a boy who creates a loving relationship with a family of trees and loses his innocence by following his family lineage into the field of logging.

In 2019, the casting process began. I approached a few dear friends of mine who I have performed with and created side-by-side with for several years. We spent hours, days, and weeks discussing how we can tell the story of logging and can talk about the ecology of trees, the degradation of land that logging causes, and how to bring people hope for preserving and restoring the land through movement.

We embarked on the most incredible experience of creating, pushing each other in rehearsal and on set, and ultimately filming Under Review: Katahdin in September 2019.

When I was in post-production and editing the film, I realized the whiteness of the film. I began to notice my ignorance of leaving very important voices and bodies out of the research, development, and overall creation of this film. My ignorance quickly spiraled into anger for how deeply my unconscious bias runs, and how much my past has ruled my casting choices, and for how little I knew about the holistic history of American land. 

On a quest to understand more, I began to study the history of Katahdin, and how the land was stolen from the Indigenous peoples, the genocide, and how the remaining tribes were forced to live on reservations. These historical lessons are often glazed over or left out of many public education curriculums—including mine in south Texas.

I also learned how public lands aren’t necessarily “good” for the environment through their pavement of roads, building of large community centers, and major foot traffic. Additionally, access for Indigenous people that used to live on this once sacred ancestral land is limited and has many restrictions.

I began studying environmental racism, and how BIPOC are disproportionately exposed to climate change, alongside the systemic issues of under-representation of BIPOC voices in every industry—especially in dance, film, environmentalism, and policy. This led to me joining an anti-racism group, going back to school for my masters in Sustainability Leadership, attending as many environmental justice town halls as possible, and taking workshops and trainings in several different areas:

·  How To Create A Democratic Space For People Of Different Races

·  Combating Environmental Injustice In New York City

·  How To Have An Anti-Racism Classroom For Middle School Students

·  Systemic Racism In Environmental Law

The next film in the series will incorporate these learnings while bringing in and compensating important and often missing voices for diverse collaborative experience.

The film will explore questions around who governs our natural and urban lands? Who makes decisions around the future of these spaces? And who is both directly – and indirectly - impacted by those decisions? Through this exploration, dance becomes a metaphor for bodies that are both displaced, re/grounded, and, through progress,  healed within our lands.

This film will have a longer research, development, and pre-production process to ensure important collaborations with diverse creatives that are already present while making room for new collaborations between cast, crew, and supporting members such as our dramaturg, anti-racism consultant, and historian. I am hopeful that this new approach will tell a fuller story about the complexity of land.

I am ashamed to admit how late my learning and unlearning started, but I am incredibly grateful to those who brought this to my attention, because these learnings have already brought so much more awareness and knowledge that I didn’t have when I finished Under Review: Katahdin. 

After postponing the release of the film for a year and debating whether or not to pull the film completely, I have decided to move forward. I believe in sharing this part of the history of Katahdin Woods and Waters and while full-heartedly admitting to my initial mistakes and blind spots. I hope the story in this film isn’t lost and people will see the messages of returning to nature, the ecology of trees, abuse of natural resources, degradation of land, the loss of innocence, and how wild lands were, for several years, in the hands of a corrupt administration.

Moving forward from Katahdin and into my future works, I will continue to be transparent in my learnings as a white creator, especially when speaking to issues that affect diverse groups of peoples. I am learning, unlearning and relearning, and in this process, I promise to move forward with telling fuller stories about the wild lands of the nation and properly representing their past, present, and future by involving the BIPOC community in a way that is empowering for them and creates hope for our future to do the same.