Improvising within the Field of Settler Colonialism on Indigenous Land

Improvising within the Field of Settler Colonialism on Indigenous Land
A Panel Conversation with Katelyn Stiles, Margit Galanter, and Kevin O’Connor (2021)
Organized by Katelyn Stiles

Future of CI - international online conference
April 23rd, 2021

Program blurb:
CI as its starting place thinks with relations. Considering this, how does each of us improvise within the field of settler colonialism on Indigenous land? Following Tuck and Yang’s assertion, “decolonization is not a metaphor,” how might contact improvisers attend to the particular grooves of the land they practice on?

The event was transcribed by karen nelson and co-edited by karen nelson and lisa nelson, in the CQ Contact Improvisation Newsletter,
Transcript of the Zoom Recording


Katelyn Stiles
is Lingít, Kiks.ádi Clan of Sheet’ká (Sitka, Alaska) and a tribal member of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. She grew up in Los Osos, CA on Chumash land and is also of Norwegian/English/French settler descent. She lived in Berlin for several years filming and dancing in the CI community. She is a filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist, improvisor, and currently a PhD student in Native American Studies at UCDavis. www.katelynstiles.com

Kevin O'Connor, of Gaelic (Scottish and Irish) and Sicilian descent, is a multi-disciplinary artist working as a choreographer and dance improvisor. He is involved in a decade-long artistic collective exploring decolonizing performances, storytelling and community memory making within polluted watersheds in Ontario, Turtle Island. He is currently part of Circo Zero’s creative process called TRY. www.ecologicalbodying.com

Margit Galanter is a dance poet, educator, and cultural instigator living on Huichin (Berkeley, CA). Hir offerings are assembled through the vivid grove — a live art school for moving, learning, creative evolution, and collective liberatory practices. Margit met Katelyn and Kevin while a student at UC Davis and is a former Co-director of Earthdance (2006-2009).www.vividgrove.org