Situating myself as a researcher

This site serves a place for the public to reflect and critique. Here is my offering of myself as a performer, artist, and researcher. Please, feel free to comment and leave your thoughts:

Who I am

I am white. I am male. Many people ask me, “Why are you putting up a feminist Mayan play?” I wish the answer were simple. I wish that I could tell people in one concise sentence that would make them understand why it is important to me. All I can offer to people are reasons why I feel it is important to me and to the world.
When people look at me, they see: white, male. In a quest to define and place myself, I struggle to let people know that I am socially conscience and worry about the world. I want to provide others with opportunities to see the world as I see it: as a global place. By producing and directing a play that is visibly not me, I am able to show others the issues and world that I stand for.
I can be a social person. At times, I thoroughly enjoy getting to know other people. When the opportunity presents itself, I like for them to get to know me. Few people know about who I am, unless I go out of my way to tell them. Like many others in the country, my past is clouded: my history, my heritage. In many ways, I am an alien in the country that I call home. For the vast majority of my life, I have lived in the United States of America. More specifically, in the Midwest. Most specifically, in Illinois. Before I lived here, for a few brief months, my parents were living in Germany. My father was serving in the United States Armed Forces. My mother, traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to be with him. Meanwhile, she gave birth to me. Although a completely legal citizen in the United States, I am often times faced with challenges that people who were birthed on geographically American soil are. It is significantly harder for me to get a replacement or official birth certificate. Or, when I travel across international borders, I am stopped and questioned a little bit harder than others. True, my frustrations are only a fraction of what many person’s are. Relatively speaking, I still feel the burden. It makes me conscious to those who have even harder times than I do. I can also thank my father for my heritage as well as my birthplace. A distant relative, a great great grandmother of mine is from a Sioux tribe. Throughout my life, I have placed much pride and significance in my heritage. I proudly boast my bloodlines. I am aware of social and legal issues that revolve around being considered an indigenous person. Again, I have not had to experience the hardships that others have, and legally I am not bound to the Great Sioux Nation. I pass. I pass legally, I pass socially, I pass visually. I do not pass emotionally. Much of this work that I do can be attributed to my family and heritage.
I have always been enthralled with anthropological studies. As an undergraduate student I double majored in Anthropology and Economics. Cultural knowledge consumes me. I have worked in Museums, I have worked as an Archaeologist. This was never enough for me. I needed to have the messages that I feel be provocative, moving, engaging. Not to downplay the work that others do, or that I have done, it just was not as energized or as romantic as I envisioned. Sadly, there are few true Indiana Jones characters remaining in this world. On another note, I have always been in love with the theatre. Performing, watching, directing. I love to write, create, inspire. It only seemed natural that these two passions of my life should link up. Coexist and find the same plane.
I have been exposed to Northern Native American contemporary theatre. I have seen it. I have witnessed it. It is powerful. It is moving. It is electric to me. It tells stories that many people do not have the opportunity to hear, see or even know about. The Mayan peoples are alive. They are not a dead culture. It is shocking to talk to people and know how many people react that way. This is my tribute. This is MAYAmerican.