115 days: Blanket # 6: the earth diver

TURTLE ISLAND

the name given by some American Indians to the North American continent...

THE EARTH DIVER

a more widespread name | theme of 'the figure who must dive into the depths of the primeval, undifferentiated world of water and bring up the makings of the earth to provide a place for the creatures to live'...

This is also a common theme in:

• central Asia
• Mongolia
• Siberia
• the Ainu of Japan
• the Northernmost people's of Europe

Blanket # 6:

• Diving for what?
• Discovery of what?
• Order | Chaos
• Creation theory
• Earth | Water
• Islands | Continents

116 days: Blanket # 5: water no get enemy

FELA!

National Theatre: Olivier

Book: Jim Lewis & Bill T Jones

Music & Lyrics: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

Arrangements & Additional Music:

Aaron Johnson & Jordan McLean

Concept: Bill T Jones, Jim Lewis, Stephen Hendel

Direction & Choreography: Bill T Jones

Design: Marina Draghici

Lighting: Robert Wierzel

Sound: Robert Kaplowitz

Projection Design: Peter Nigrini

MD's: Laurence Corns & Robin Hopcraft

• body | energy
  
• body politics
  
• music | power
  
• Africa!
  
• rain | water

Blanket # 5:

• water | rain
• The Milk River | Montana
• Indian water rights
• The Winters Doctrine
• a valuable resource

117 days: Blanket # 4: sipapu

Photo: Wvbailey at the English Language Wikipedia | July 2007

sipapu

Blanket # 4:

• portals | indentations | pathways
• secret places | underground
• Earth's naval | birth
• centre of the universe | being
• spiritual | cultural ceremony
• the present world
• what is the ceremony?
• what is the place?

118 days: Blanket # 3: The Wilderness

"No one can deny that the impact of European arrivals on Indian tribes and individuals has mostly been tragic. From the point of view of Indian peoples alive today, the story of that encounter is one of astonishing staying power amid vast and devastating change and loss. When Europeans arrived on these shores, they generally agreed that the wilderness was a place of dark and mysterious dangers, a place to be tamed, cut back, reduced to civilized plots of farmland and towns. It was assumed that the Indians - savages - lived in the untamed woodland wilderness among all of Satan's plots and schemes. Today in America, vast hordes of European-derived citizens flock to the wilderness, grow angry at any invasion of the wilderness (such as a cow pod) besides their own, and consider such places almost sacred. In this, they often invoke the benign ecological presence of the Native Americans, to whom many plots of land are indeed sacred. The notion of wilderness in American minds has changed by approximately 180 degrees, and perhaps some of this is thanks to the Indian population."

JAKE PAGE

In the Hands of the Great Spirit:

The 20,000 Year History of American Indians

(Free Press: New York, 2003)

Blanket # 3:

• Establish a/the wilderness | woodland
• Is the wilderness the land?
• The wilderness | land as sacred
• Ecology and preservation | conservation
• Ownership vs Guardianship

119 days: Blanket # 2: Death Song

Nothing lives long

Nothing lives long

Nothing lives long

Except the earth and the mountains

'The Death Song of White Antelope'

Adapted from The Fighting Cheyennes

by George Bird Grinnell, New York, 1915

WHITE ANTELOPE:

• Noted war captain of the Cheyennes for almost fifty years
• Killed at Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
• Stood with folded arms singing this song
• Scrotum made into a tobacco pouch by Colorado Volunteer

Blanket # 2:

• Establish what is living
  
• Establish what dies
  
• Where is the earth?
• Where are the mountains?
• Who is singing?
• Tokens | artifacts | memorabilia|relics

120 days: Blanket # 1: Song Fragment

The lands around my dwelling are

now more beautiful

from the day when

it is given me to see

faces I have never seen before

Translated by W. J. Worster from Knud Rasmussen's Danish

in 'The Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos'. 

Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, 1921-24, Coppenhagen, 1929.

Blanket #1

• establish a land
• create a dwelling
• see the faces
  
• the need to welcome | to sing
  
• the transformation of the land

It is hoped | that in the next 120 days | 120 blankets will be established | created | imagined | explored | for THE BLANKET PLAY | Saturday 30 April 2011 | See adjacent for details...

my five

National Portrait Gallery | London

11 November 2010 - 20 February 2011

Anna-Catherine Chevalier | Madeleine and Adèle | August 2009

Félix Carpio | Wafa | May 2010

Spencer Murphy | Laurie 2010 | April 2010

Clare Shilland | Merel | April 2009

Amy Helene Johansson | Unsafe Journey | September 2009