SANTA FE, NM.- SITE SANTA FE will present Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, on view June 5 through September 7, 2026. Curated by Candice Hopkins (citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Executive Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project, the exhibition marks a homecoming to New Mexico, following its tour in the Northeastern United States and Canada. It is grounded in a pivotal moment in 1969, when Indian Theatre: An Artistic Experiment in Process was first published in Santa Fe at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), the same year as the Occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes. For the first time, the 1969 document will be presented as an object in the exhibition for visitors to experience.

“At SITE SANTA FE, we are honored to present Indian Theater. Santa Fe holds a vital place in the history of contemporary Native art, shaped by the legacy of IAIA and the groundbreaking work initiated here in 1969. This exhibition not only reflects Santa Fe’s history, but it also invites audiences to engage with it as an ongoing movement,” said Louis Grachos, Phillips Executive Director of SITE SANTA FE.

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969 is the first major exhibition to position performance as an origin point for contemporary Native art. It traces a lineage of artistic experimentation that emerged in the late 1960s, a period defined by political activism, renewed engagement with Indigenous aesthetic traditions, and a profound reassertion of identity and self-determination.

The exhibition brings together over 100 artworks by over 40 artists and collectives, including works by Rebecca Belmore (Anishinaabe), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band of Choctaw and Cherokee), Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabe, Wasuksing First Nation/Canada), and Eric-Paul Riege (Diné), and more. Across film, video, sculpture, painting, drawing, beadwork, and archival materials, the exhibition demonstrates the breadth of Native artistic practices while emphasizing performance as their generative core.

A key highlight is the presentation of digitized footage of Spiderwoman Theater (Lisa Mayo, Gloria Miguel, and Muriel Miguel [all Rappahannock and Kuna]), for the first time since its original live debut. As the longest-running theater group in the US, Spiderwoman Theater emerged from 1970s feminism and its disillusionment with the treatment of women in radical political movements of the time.

“The late 1960s marked a critical turning point when performance became a powerful tool for Native artists to engage in political struggle and redefine contemporary art on their own terms. By bringing forward practices like Spiderwoman Theater alongside contemporary works, we see that performance is an evolving language that continues to inform how Native artists create and connect today,” shared Candice Hopkins, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Forge Project and Curator of Indian Theater.

WHY SANTA FE IS IMPORTANT

To further bring forward the exhibition’s origins at IAIA in Santa Fe, SITE’s presentation of Indian Theater will feature collaborations with the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), the country’s only museum dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and interpreting contemporary Native artists’ work. This collaboration will expand upon the themes raised in Indian Theater through exhibitions and programming at both institutions. As the publisher of the original Indian Theatre treatise, IAIA is furthering the ideas first presented by Lloyd Kiva New and his collaborators in 1969. Through MoCNA’s participation, this exhibition is not only a homecoming of those ideas but also a testimony to their unimaginable flourishing in the hands of diverse artists over more than fifty years of Native creativity, artistry, and self-determination. Out of the seeds of the original Indian Theater movement, the performing arts became a degree program at IAIA in 2018, and it hosts performances and programs in its state-of-the-art Performing Arts Center on campus.

"Indian Theater recognizes contemporary Native art and performance as living, evolving, and in motion, shaped by history and sustained through artists’ resilience and self-determination. The accompanying public programs were imagined and developed in close collaboration with the artists, inviting audiences to engage with the emotional rhythm of the work and experience the ongoing legacy of Native art and performance through conversations, readings, screenings, workshops, activations, and performances,” said Brandee Caoba, SITE SANTA FE Curator.