This custom is a reminder to all Lakota that they were effectively born as prisoners in their own country. card issued by his tribe upon his birth Sept.

When asked to show his identification, Brings Plenty will produce not a birth certificate but the prison I.D. He is an Oglala Lakota born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. No one who sees it will ever forget it.”īrings Plenty, an accomplished Lakota actor from Kansas City who has appeared on House of Cards and was a stunt rider on The Revenant, plays five roles in the Aurora Fox production of Black Elks Speaks. The New York Daily News called Black Elk Speaks “harnessed dynamite. betts, a black man who makes his own statement about marginalization with the intentional lower-casing of his name, was a member of the Theatre Company in 1994 and watched Black Elk Speaks nightly from the wings while performing in another play. betts, is the first in Colorado since the play was premiered by the Denver Center Theatre Company in 1994. This staging of Black Elk Speaks, directed by donnie l. “Because we are all in this together,” Brings Plenty says. For white audiences, it is an opportunity to learn. For indigenous audiences, the performance is an empowering opportunity to have their stories told again. Among them: The Trail of Tears, the Santee Execution, the Sand Creek Massacre and the atrocity at Wounded Knee. Actor Moses Brings Plenty (pictured above right) describes Black Elk as “a living memory of who we once were and who we are today as a people, and who we can be again with love and compassion and a true understanding of coexistence.”Īudiences of many hues packed the Aurora Fox over the opening weekend to watch the story of a gentle Lakota medicine man who is compelled to tell his Americanized grandson the stories the young man was never taught in school. It was adapted into a play by Christopher Sergel that DCPA Theatre Company Artistic Director Donovan Marley staged in 1994 (pictured at right) before bringing it to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. The play is based on the book by John Neihardt, who in 1932 was granted access to chronicle Black Elk’s tumultuous life story. Performing the title role in Black Elks Speaks is one way for him to do that, he says. Teaching someone the truth will help them to resolve these issues within themselves, and help them to let that go.” “Instead of blaming and shaming,” he says in measured tones, “what is important to me now is that people know the truth about our shared history. He fights back against the ongoing marginalization of his people not with hate, but with history.

Today, he is a recovering alcoholic, father of eight and spiritual counselor living in Northglenn. He took his fight from the school playground to Iraq, where he served two tours as a U.S. As a young man, Good Feather fought demons both from within and without. He was raised by grandparents on a reservation and bussed to a public high school where he was taught Columbus and Andrew Jackson were saviors. This is a man who was born of two worlds in Standing Rock, S.D., into the band of Sitting Bull. And you wonder: How can these descendants of Black Elk, the revered Oglala Lakota medicine man, perform today in the name of healing and peace?īackstage, Good Feather (pictured above left) mulls that question carefully before answering. Then you see the play – a relentless recounting of the systematic genocide that wiped out an estimated 80 percent of the Native American population over a century. “The longest journey is to the heart,” Good Feather says to cheers and hugs just before the flock disappears to make final preparations for the evening performance. Right hands are placed over hearts and left hands on adjacent shoulders as the spiritual leader, Doug Good Feather, leads a short sermon on the virtues of gratitude and healing. About 20 cast members, their families and theatre personnel circle up as the young girl carrying the bowl allows each person to bathe themselves in the medicinal smoke. Even if you are an interloper carrying a reporter’s notebook. Photo by Christine Fisk.Īn hour before the second performance of Black Elk Speaks, all within smelling distance of the burning bowl of sage on the stage of the Aurora Fox Theatre are invited to participate in a Lakota Prayer Circle.

Black elk speaks circle of life