Owl Dancing
Ledger style acrylic wash on 1930 Congressional Record.
2002, 10 1/4 x 7 1/2
For the traditional Native owl dance, the woman asks the man to dance. If he refuses, he must pay her whatever she wants and then tell the entire crowd at the powwow exactly why he refused.
Painted on Congressional Record paper, rather than a balance sheet, this piece reflects the history of official record keeping, including treaties as well as laws that have threatened native identity. It is painted in traditional transparent, or x-ray, style, so that we can read the Congressional Record through the figures of the traditional male and female dancers and the horse spirits.
According to George Flett, the dancers are dressed and dancing in Spokane style in the 1890s--when they danced at the Two River Campgrounds, near Oyaken Creek.
Flett uses stylized horses, like those pencil-drawn on the dancers' blankets, to represent thoughts and dreams of pre-reservation days. These dreams are both the dancers' and his own, resulting from stories his mother passed down. His richly layered ledger drawing passes down multiple stories of Spokane history over the dominant culture's material history, represented by the Congressional Record. It is not only a negotiation of his "individual/tribal identity" but a form of resistance.
A comic negotiation of identity and form of resistance is exemplified in the poem "Owl Dancing with Fred Astaire" by Sherman Alexie--the Spokane poet, fiction writer, and film maker.