Decolonizing Music: Zitkála-Šá’s Sundance Opera and Religious Resistance

The Religion Department and Ethnic and Race Studies Program invite you to a co-sponsored talk honoring Indigenous Heritage Month.

Pima Community College Adjunct Professor Bryce Andrade, M.A. (American Indian Studies, Montana State University) will present on the topic of Opera as a form of Indigenous resistance. This talk will explore the Sun Dance Opera, an Indigenous opera written by Yankton-Dakota Sioux Zitkála-Šá. She used the traditional Western musical form to challenge her Western audience and lament the United States government’s treatment of the Indigenous peoples of America including the prohibition of the Sun Dance ceremony, a practice shared amongst multiple Indigenous peoples of North America.

Join us to learn how Zitkála-Šá’s work decolonizes the space of Opera and provides Indigenous peoples a voice in a space that was not meant for them, adding to the colorful political history of Opera.

The event is open to the public for learning and engagement across communities on Indigenous religious history and activism.