Dance to the Berdashe
Kent Monkman
2009
A catalogue published by Urban Shaman, featuring texts by Steve Loft, Barry Ace, and Mike Hoolboom. Dance to the Berdashe is a 12-minute, 5-channel video installation by Kent Monkman inspired by a canvas of the same title by the American painter George Catlin (1796-1872) depicting a dance common among the Sauk and Fox nations, of warriors dancing around a Berdashe, visibly joyful and excited. In his memoirs, published in 1844, From Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of North American Indians, Catlin speaks of this ritual unsympathetically: “One of the most unaccountable and disgusting customs that I have ever met in the Indian country...and where I should wish that it might be extinguished before it be more fully recorded.” The Berdashe is re-interpreted by Miss Chief Eagle Testickle with joy and power.
Urban Nation
Urban Nation
Identifier
L0095Call Number
N6549 M646 A4 2009Extent
48 pages : illustrations ; softcover 18 cmLanguage
ISBN
9780973193527Place of Publication
Winnipeg, MBPublication Type
PrintArtist
Kent MonkmanPublisher
Urban ShamanChoreographer
Michael GreyeyesCollection
grunt gallery LibraryAll copyrights remain property of the individual artists.