拉丽莎-法斯特马 剧作家

shiyi18

Larissa FastHorse
Playwright | Class of 2020
Creating space for Indigenous artists, stories, and experiences in mainstream theater and countering misrepresentation of Native American perspectives in broader society.


Portrait of Larissa FastHorse

Title
Playwright
Location
Santa Monica, California
Age
49 at time of award
Area of Focus
Theatrical Arts
Website
Personal Website
Indigenous Direction
Published October 6, 2020
ABOUT LARISSA'S WORK
Larissa FastHorse is a playwright and performing arts advocate illuminating Indigenous processes of artmaking and storytelling as well as Native American perspectives on contemporary life. A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, FastHorse combines a keen sense of satire and facility with dramatic forms in plays that are funny, incisive, and, at times, deeply unsettling for audiences faced with the realities of Native Americans' experience in the United States.

FastHorse's first play, Average Family (2007), depicts a reality TV show featuring two families—one Indigenous, the other White—whose members are challenged to live for a summer with only the materials that would have been accessible to them in the early nineteenth century. This dark comedy conveys the marginalization of Indigenous people in a growing America while also pointing to their erasure from American history. The Thanksgiving Play (2018) centers around the folly of “woke” White educators attempting to write and direct a socially and historically responsible Thanksgiving play without consulting with or including Native Americans. Interspersed among scenes involving the earnest but angst-ridden teachers and two hired actors are depictions of actual Thanksgiving activities in public schools, emphasizing the ways in which the colonial myth of the holiday is perpetuated. Steeped in satire, the play also exposes the complications and contradictions involved in redressing injustices of the past. FastHorse is currently at work on a trilogy of devised, place-based plays. For each work, she and collaborators undertake a years-long immersion with Native communities, engaging in an Indigenized process of creation to build a story and characters based on real people responding to local issues. She worked with the Tongva and other Native communities in the Los Angeles area for Urban Rez (2016). Structured as a cultural fair and involving many non-professional actors, the play addresses issues such as blood quantum controversies and the fight for federal recognition for the original tribes of the Los Angeles area. Native Nation (2019), created with members of almost all of Arizona's 22 sovereign nations, explores issues of concern to them, including the foster system and environmental justice. The final play in the trilogy will focus on FastHorse's own Lakota people of South Dakota.

In addition to playwriting, FastHorse is the co-founder of Indigenous Direction, which advises on theater and film projects that address Native issues, and she speaks widely on how to build sustainable, reciprocal relationships with Native American communities. FastHorse is creating space for Indigenous artists, stories, and experiences in mainstream theater and countering the misrepresentation and erasure of Indigenous concerns in broader society.

BIOGRAPHY
Larissa FastHorse began her career as a ballet dancer. Before becoming an independent playwright and choreographer, FastHorse worked in the television and film industry as a creative executive at Universal Pictures and Paramount. Her additional works include Cow Pie Bingo (2018), Landless (2015), Cherokee Family Reunion (2012), and Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders: A Class Presentation (2008). She has been commissioned by a number of venues across the country, including the Cornerstone Theater Company, The Public Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Native Voices at the Autry, and the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, among many others.

IN LARISSA'S WORDS
LarissaFastHorse:"WhenIstartaplay,Idon’thaveapreordainedideaofwhatformitshouldtakeorthepointofthestoryorhowitends.SometimesthecommunityIamworkingwithdeterminesthosethings,sometimesitisuptome."


When I start a play, I don’t have a preordained idea of what form it should take or the point of the story or how it ends. Sometimes the community I am working with determines those things, sometimes it is up to me. Either way, I write the first draft of the script very quickly, allowing the characters to say and do what they want. One time, without warning, my favorite character killed himself. I burst into tears at the shock. Then my job was to embed that personal, visceral experience into the action of the script. That’s where the real work happens in draft after draft, crafting that emotional journey underneath the action, a roller coaster ride hidden in plain sight. But when it works and I watch an entire audience gasp or laugh or cry together, it’s magic. It’s why we need theater.



拉丽莎-法斯特马
剧作家 | 2020级
在主流戏剧中为原住民艺术家、故事和经验创造空间，反对在更广泛的社会中对美国原住民观点的误导。


拉丽莎-法特马的画像

标题
剧作家
地点
圣莫尼卡，加利福尼亚
年龄
获奖时为49岁
关注领域
戏剧艺术
网站
个人网站
土著方向
发表于2020年10月6日
关于拉里萨的工作
Larissa FastHorse是一位剧作家和表演艺术倡导者，她阐明了土著人的艺术创作和讲故事的过程，以及美国本土对当代生活的看法。作为Sicangu Lakota Nation的成员，FastHorse将敏锐的讽刺感和对戏剧形式的驾驭能力结合在一起，在剧中表现出滑稽、尖锐，有时让观众面对美国土著人的现实经历时深感不安。

FastHorse的第一个剧本《平均家庭》（2007年）描述了一个以两个家庭为主角的电视真人秀节目，一个是土著家庭，另一个是白人家庭，他们的成员被要求只用19世纪初他们可以获得的材料生活一个夏天。这部黑暗的喜剧传达了土著人在成长中的美国被边缘化的情况，同时也指出了他们在美国历史上被抹杀的情况。感恩节戏剧》（2018年）围绕着 "清醒的 "白人教育家的愚蠢行为展开，他们试图在没有咨询或包括美国原住民的情况下编写和导演一部具有社会和历史意义的感恩节戏剧。在涉及认真但焦虑不安的教师和两名受雇演员的场景中，穿插了对公立学校实际感恩节活动的描述，强调了这个节日的殖民神话被延续的方式。在讽刺中，该剧还揭露了纠正过去不公正现象的复杂性和矛盾性。FastHorse目前正在进行三部曲的设计，基于地方的戏剧。对于每一部作品，她和合作者都与原住民社区进行了长达数年的沉浸，参与了一个土著化的创作过程，以真实的人对当地问题的反应为基础建立一个故事和人物。她与洛杉矶地区的Tongva和其他原住民社区合作，创作了《城市雷兹》（2016）。该剧的结构是一个文化集市，涉及许多非专业演员，该剧涉及的问题包括血量的争议和为洛杉矶地区的原始部落争取联邦承认。土著民族》（2019年）是与亚利桑那州22个主权民族中几乎所有的成员一起创作的，探讨了他们关心的问题，包括寄养制度和环境正义。三部曲中的最后一部戏将关注FastHorse自己的南达科他州的拉科塔人。

除了剧本创作，FastHorse还是Indigenous Direction的联合创始人，该组织为解决原住民问题的戏剧和电影项目提供建议，她还就如何与美国原住民社区建立可持续的互惠关系进行广泛发言。FastHorse正在为主流戏剧中的原住民艺术家、故事和经验创造空间，并反对在更广泛的社会中对原住民问题的错误描述和抹杀。

个人简历
Larissa FastHorse以芭蕾舞者身份开始她的职业生涯。在成为独立剧作家和编舞家之前，FastHorse在电视和电影行业工作，在环球影业和派拉蒙担任创意主管。她的其他作品包括Cow Pie Bingo（2018）、Landless（2015）、Cherokee Family Reunion（2012）和Teaching Disco Squaredancing to Our Elders。A Class Presentation (2008)。她已被全国各地的一些场所委托创作，包括基石剧院公司、公共剧院、耶鲁剧团、明尼阿波利斯儿童剧院公司、奥特里的原住民之声和肯尼迪中心青年观众剧院等。

拉里萨的话
拉丽莎-快马："当我开始演戏的时候，我没有一个预先设定的想法，不知道它应该采取什么形式，也不知道它是如何发展的，有时我工作的社区决定了这些事情，有时是我自己决定的。


当我开始一出戏时，我没有一个预先设定的想法，不知道它应该采取什么样的形式，也不知道故事的重点或如何结束。有时与我合作的社区决定了这些事情，有时由我决定。无论哪种方式，我都会很快写出剧本的第一稿，让人物说他们想说的话，做他们想做的事。有一次，在没有警告的情况下，我最喜欢的角色自杀了。我在震惊之余泪流满面。然后我的工作就是把这种个人的、内脏的体验嵌入到剧本的行动中。这就是真正的工作，在一个又一个的草稿中发生，在动作之下精心设计那段情感之旅，一个隐藏在众目睽睽之下的过山车。但是，当它奏效时，我看着所有的观众一起喘息、大笑或哭泣，这就是魔法。这就是为什么我们需要戏剧。