Interview with Julian Lang, director of Institute for Native Knowledge

By Mark McKenna

Julian Lang: I am Julian Lang, and I am the director of the Institute of Native Knowledge.

Mark McKenna: Tell me what you do here in Blue Lake...

JL: I am a Karuk Indian, and my whole thing has been working with Indian culture. From the time I was a little kid, there were certain things that seemed important to me about what our culture is all about. People learn about culture, but I think it is more authentic if it is transmitted. I’m just really one of those culture workers.

MM: Tell me more about the difference between learning culture and transmission.

JL: Well, it is like art. A lot of people I know that are Western-trained, university-trained, they immerse themselves and become very aware and they think they are experts. I don’t assume that I have learned culture. I think culture is of a certain place, it is real specific and particular. People like Joseph Campbell, who talk about "universal this and universal that," they don’t really exist except in his way of thinking about it. So, he becomes an expert perpetuating something that doesn’t exist. Then there are other experts who nobody listens to, who really are the experts, because they are a part of the living culture. That, to me, is part of the difference. You have an old person who is those stories that Campbell talks about, and those stories define who they are, that is my idea of what transmitting culture is about.

How do we do it today, that is kind of the big question. I never have enough money to realize all these ideas and dreams. I realize that we are talking about an audience of about 100 people within our tribe, but it is a really important 100, that are a part of culture and perpetuating it, and a lot of them are young now. Our cultural beliefs, and transmitting that to those young people is what our work is about. In the process, we are able to share with non-Indian people. And in a sense, culture is you and I sitting here. It isn’t recorded and transmitted and sent out. It is a valid cultural experience for us, that’s what I am thinking.

MM: What brought you to start a relationship with Dell’Arte?

JL: Well that was way back when. I studied with Carlo [Mazzone-Clementi], long years ago. I’ve always thought theater was my place. I got really involved, but I got really turned off by the university orienting you towards a career, which was something that I originally set out to do, but I sort of fell between the cracks. I felt somewhat neglected, so I decided to design my own – not career path – but education. I discovered theater was a way to bring the study of history and literature and all that stuff – it all made sense in theater. That was the place where all that information was transformed into something new, into a new kind of voice. It inspired me that way. Carlo was the first person who talked about art in ways that made sense to me. He was such a tyrant, on the one hand, and we locked horns often, but he talked about art as this important voice that made a lot of sense to me. That was transformative for me personally.

A couple of years ago, the work that we were doing in our own tribe was bringing back ceremonies and working on returning this particular ceremony, and in the process we were talking with the folks at Dell’Arte. They understood that we were talking about maybe beginning a collaboration: Let’s do something. So, they wrote a proposal and got funded. In the midst of our cultural work, they said, "Hey we got funded and need to be thinking about doing a play," which totally was almost blind-siding us, because we were so involved in this other process. So, there is a particular myth, a story that is really a core of the ceremony. I had made a commitment to my partner that I would do nothing that was contrary to what we were doing with this ceremonial work. But this thing came out of the clear blue sky. So, we decided to use the story that is part of the ceremony, which was really good because it gave us a better understanding of the story and its role. Stories are like something that is attached to important work. Like money making work, career work. We discovered that the story was really the core of the work. Without a big understanding, it didn’t quite make sense. You did the work because you were getting paid, but the story really made it meaningful. It was an important time to do something. It was all serendipity and it just happened. So, the end result was that we began working with them and adapted the story. It is this ensemble group, their principle actors and me and my partner and her daughter. They provided all the music, and we just went through the story and visualized it.

MM: Where is that in the process now?

JL: It had all the innate problems of a theater ensemble: egos, different views. Theater is – you take the best and you run with it. For the story, the Native perspective is that, even though it is the same old story, you say it over and over again. It is doesn’t change. That is why it is important. It is a big, beautiful thing, a big piece of something. So, if you chip at it and retransform it, you tinker with it too much and it becomes something else. The story is somewhat dormant, but we are in a process of looking at it again. What we are doing now is more shadow theater. We have introduced a new story. We want to go back to that other story, because it was such a great experience. So, our second collaboration we began working with the shadow theater and performed out there a number of times. And brought it out here, I think, the year before last. We are in the process now, we are doing a sort of Orpheus myth, which should be pretty good. That is what’s going on right now.

MM: Is that going to be performed at Dell’Arte?

JL: The idea is to involve Jael Weisman, an incredibly intelligent kind of theater historian. It is really neat to work with somebody like that, because it really became evident what are the two ideas about what theater is and its role within a community. The idea of art versus culture. They all become really apparent when you have somebody who is just so blindly a theater person. That is what they are. Even though they have this incredibly broad knowledge, they are Dell’Arte, so it is always like, "When does the little guy spit in God’s eye," or something like that. Waiting for that kind of moment. When do we get to turn it into a Dell’Arte kind of thing? It is always really funny, because with ours it never happens. Our stories are important spiritual sources and our myths are important for the community’s cohesiveness. It seems like the European thing was like somehow a subterfuge, but right now it is really important to create that cohesiveness. So, that is the role of theater for us, not to liberate us so much as to bring us back together.

MM: When you bring Dell’Arte into the process of investigating community myth for yourselves, how have you seen a positive or negative influence with Dell’Arte on your community? Have you noticed an impact of your community on Dell’Arte?

JL: Well, it is a funny thing. I think Lillian Hellman said that what is so funny is that theater is this thing where you bring this group of people together and they become so incredibly intimate and unified around this idea of this play. When it is over, you are hugging them, it is like they have become family. Then the next time that you see them is four or five years later, across the room, and they wave. You see each other, and it sort of resumes the relationship. It is like something bound together. Our relationship with the Dell’Arte is kind of like that, only we are not far away. We go to the shows and we sit and talk and say we’ll have lunch, and we never do. It is a typical theater relationship, I guess. Until we have a big idea and money, or until they have a big idea and money, we never really get together.

For us, the main positive side of the relationship was really looking at contemporary, non-Indian, mainstream – although Dell’Arte may not be a mainstream theater group – working with them and seeing how they perceive story. They are professional storytellers. Our view of story is so vastly different, and yet in the end it is all about the story. They have their ideas and we have ours but in the end it is all about the story and the audience. How do you make it good for the people? We have different end goals or objectives with the story.

They were really good, in the sense that we were really trepidacious. We didn’t really want to do this project. The first project, we went on a trip together and talked about all the issues. Theater is continually guilty of appropriation. It seems to be a part of the nature of theater to appropriate and present views that may not necessarily be the views of the people doing the storytelling, the acting. We talked a lot about that appropriation of our culture and our cultural ideas and our responsibility. We don’t just make a mistake by being over-generous with our stories. Our relationship in our community is that we can do whatever we want until we blow it. We are kind of leery of these relationships and collaborating and all of that. We ended up with a nice understanding. They agreed that we would do what we do and hope for the best. It was fortunate, because it was a good play and it was really impressive.

Coincidentally there was a California Indian conference held by the state universities that brings together the academics and community leaders from all over the state. They were here. One evening there was a performance and they were able to come. It was impressive beyond anyone’s expectation. Most people had no concept of this real professional presentation of this thing. Our stories in the Indian language, the Karuk language. A lot of people were just blown away by the idea of doing something like that. It seems like people will never appreciate or understand this story if they can’t understand a word of it, but it carried – by the acting. It was great having them as our collaborators, as our primary actors.

Donald [Forrest] out there, who you’ve probably met, played a petite little vixen. My partner was just, "I can’t conceive of it. I can’t picture him playing this little floozy." It was amazing, because she rips off her clitoris at one point in the story. He just got into this, what he called, clitoridectomy. We had to tell him, "You’ve just got to tone this down." I guess it was just the only opportunity for such a thing. So, it was pretty intense. Then it was totally reverent. The trade-off was that they had to be able to do their thing. There were passages where they were able to really set up a scene or add a comedic touch, to get into the acting of it all. ’Cause so much of what is in the story is unknown by a lot of people, Indian included. Just the cultural meaning of what is going on. So it was good.

As far as our relationship, I don’t know. That’s a question that I’ve never asked. We seem to have a good, long-lasting relationship. They seem to be insulated within their own world and we just occasionally drop in. I’ve tried recently, but you can only go so far there.

MM: What makes Dell’Arte good collaborators for you besides being able to spend the time and lay ground rules?

JL: I don’t really know why Dell’Arte has turned out to be good collaborators. Most everyone else we have dealt with – not really most – the guy that I worked with on this shadow play, when I first saw a little video clip of his, I thought this is what we need for our storytelling. One of the problems with it was that there was this artistic, ego-driven thing. That doesn’t exist with shadows. It is so other-dimensional. The person is not really there, it is the image you cast. It is a different medium, but it is very, very powerful as a myth technique. It was really hard for this guy, he was hyperactive and was constantly fiddling. I met a guy who said he wouldn’t work with hyperactive people, because they change everything when you are asleep. Which is one of the problems that we had, there was no continuity from day to day. It was constantly going in a different direction, because he didn’t fall asleep like the rest of us did. He was constantly fidgeting and doing things. My process is, it just slowly simmers into some perfection. His boiled constantly.

Dell’Arte is very even, so I think that is an important thing. They are excessive in what they do, but actually it is a very even keel. They are not so urban. I think that is another important element. The people who are urban are more aggressive, are more competitive with their peers. And then, at a certain point, either you piss them off or they piss you off. That is just the way it goes. That is probably not a unique thing to us. I think they piss each other off all the time. That is important, too, the idea that they are not plugged into an all-urban thing. Their temperaments are more contemplative, even though they are crazy. That is the other thing, you need to have this craziness, but it is a different type of craziness. It is more thought-out in a sense. We need people to be crazy. That was in our introduction that we would give. We wanted to retell the story in a way that was very powerfully competitive with today’s whatever. This seemed like a good way of telling the story. When we thought about who we would want to work with to do this we thought about who are the craziest people that we know? Dell’Arte, at that time. They have done crazy things. It was kind of unique for them, which is great.

MM: What drives them to work with you guys?

JL: I think that they are committed to this place. That is kind of what it is all about. They have these strange personal histories that have connected them here and there with different native peoples. And Michael Fields, it just seemed like our experiences and visions somehow jived. Plus, he is really easy. Some people think of him as a yes person. He is pretty much willing to do what you want to do. He seems to have no problem with at least attempting something.

MM: Is there a story or an anecdote that shines a light on the heart of what they are doing?

JL: They really valued a real high-quality experience for the audience and stretching their own abilities. We really valued a story that was really asleep and then it became awake. That all kind of happened. Then the ceremony happened a couple of years later. It was like theater is pretend, but then there was this reality. This ceremony hadn’t happened in 135 years, so really exploring the story was critically important. If we didn’t have it, we may have come up with the same thing, but it just gives you a level of meaning that maybe we wouldn’t have had. It was a great experience for everyone involved. It was very defined, and that was good.

MM: As you look towards the future, for the Karuk community, and the community as a whole, what kind of potential do you see for the involvement of Dell’Arte?

JL: Our problem is this: The storytelling group within the native community is really small. I’ve been doing all these workshops and trying to get young people involved, so that in the next couple of years we can sing at the drop of the hat, teach them traditional songs, but then sing that song in a dramatic way. Then we combine it with readings and poetry, so that it is more of a teaching and learning experience. We brought out these young people at the Mad River Festival last July. I think their school is going to be important for us. We have discussed teaching classes in shadow theater and developing these stories. My main thing is that we have the manpower to do a play. I want all Indians to be the actors, and then we collaborate with the non-Indians as the technical people and the instructors. Teaching this one gal to look mad. She’s just never been mad at anyone in all her life. It was really important to for them to work with some of the Dell’Arte people so that they can physically do some of the things we want them to do. We are continuing with our own efforts to make people somewhat professional presenters, actors, speakers – at least to a point where they don’t feel that it is totally foreign. And I think we have a lot of support locally. It is just that people want us to move faster. I don’t know if it is our culture, but something keeps us from wanting to move too fast. We need to be able to move somewhat slower. The community needs to know what we are doing.

MM: The last thing I want to ask is if Dell’Arte wasn’t here, how much of a difference would that make?

JL: Well, we know other people and we have other resources, but if they weren’t here, it may have been more long-handed. Most of our connections are in the Bay area, so it might have been more urban. Otherwise, it may have been more grassroots, just us doing it. This way they have a lot of – that is what I think of as collaboration: taking experts and combining it with our own artistic process. I am not so much into entertaining, but just presenting a big fat myth and letting people think about it. You can tell those stories and spend all that money, energy, resource and tell us Coyote stories and only entertain people, or you can use the same amount of energy and resources and tell a big fat myth, and just have people wondering what the hell is that all about. In order for you, a non-Indian, to understand my culture, you are going to have to walk away – not entertained, but I guess that helps. You are going to have to walk away thinking, "Jesus Christ, what was that?" Not in a negative sense, but it is just like – there are too many things in there. You can understand it on the one hand, but on the other hand, it is too deep. That is what our future is, doing the deep stuff, letting other people do whatever they want to do, changing my attitude and being more positive. That is my new goal, being more positive. Be happy about everything. And I think Dell’Arte has been a big part of that.

Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation.

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