UW Theatre and Dance Presents “What Was Ours, Who She Is” Jan. 30

The University of Wyoming Department of Theatre and Dance opens the spring production season with “What Was Ours, Who She Is,” an evocative staged reading that intertwines two powerful stories from Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation.

 

The performance will be held Friday, Jan. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts studio theatre. Tickets are $10 each.

Tickets are available at www.tix.com/ticket-sales/uwyo/6984/event/1456329, in person or at (307) 766-6666 at the Performing Arts box office, Monday through Friday, noon-6 p.m. and one hour before performances.

Rooted in the award-winning documentaries produced by Northern Arapaho filmmaker Jordan Dresser, the performance highlights themes of cultural preservation, ancestral reclamation and the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP).

 

“What Was Ours” follows a Shoshone elder, a powwow princess and an Arapaho journalist on a journey to a Chicago museum to reclaim sacred artifacts. Their quest explores the repatriation of stolen heritage and the fight for tribal sovereignty over their own history.

 

“Who She Is” humanizes the MMIWP epidemic. Through intimate, first-person narratives, the piece honors the lives and legacies of women behind the statistics, confronting systemic violence with personal stories of joy and loss.

 

The staged reading is directed by faculty member Cecilia Aragón and written and adapted by Dresser, with additional writing by Sophie Barksdale.

 

Dresser, a leader in Indigenous advocacy and cultural preservation, brings extensive experience to this production. A former chairman of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and a member of national advisory bodies, including the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Not Invisible Act Commission, Dresser is the curator of Collections at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery, where he works to reframe museum narratives to reflect inclusive, community-driven storytelling.

 

The production also features visual artist, dancer and actress Sarah Ortegon (Eastern Shoshone/Northern Arapaho), a former Miss Native American USA known for her work in the PBS film “The Art of Home” and the series “Jamestown.”

 

Other performers include Madeline Bender, Joseph Benn-Thornton, William Cordell Cossairt, Christin Covello, Wolf Star Duran, Mary E. Harris, Benny Pallares, Hunter Tanner, Reinette Tendore, Lydia Toelle and Skylar Vann.

 

For more information, call Aragón at (307) 760-7151 or email ccaragon@uwyo.edu.