ORONO, Maine — Modern Native American theater companies are increasingly staging productions by an unlikely playwright: William Shakespeare.

Madeline Sayet, the executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program and a Libra Visiting Diversity Professor at the University of Maine, will give a talk on Thursday titled, "Indigenous Shakespeares." In it, she will discuss why many Native American theater artists are embracing Shakespeare.

"At the Indian boarding schools, Shakespeare was taught. So there's a kind of historical-like relevance and also defiance that comes with the relationship,” Sayet said. “In many instances, the reason we have Shakespeare is because we were forced to give up our own languages."

In the last 10-15 years, Sayet said, Native artists have used Shakespeare as a tool to reclaim their voices. For example, in 2017, "Off the Rails" was the first play by a Native playwright to be performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The play is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" set in an Indian boarding school.

Sayet described how some productions use Shakespeare as the basis for another important cultural project.

"There's been a big movement toward Shakespeare productions that are translated into indigenous languages,” she said; “where indigenous languages are being shown very clearly to be as important, if not more important, than Shakespeare.”

Such stagings are on the rise - in part as a way to teach and preserve indigenous languages at risk of extinction.

Another reason for Sayet’s visit to the University of Maine is to develop a play with Penobscot playwright Maulian Dana. It will be based on the true story of Molly Spotted Elk from the Penobscot Nation. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Spotted Elk was a prominent dancer in Paris. She ended up fleeing France during World War II.

"People are really attracted to both the idea that vaudeville is naturally a part of the world, and the cabaret Paris dance scene of that time period is an incredibly compelling imagistic time, but also of this Native woman in this time period doing these things that no one would assume that anyone did,” Sayet said.

Sayet's lecture, "Indigenous Shakespeares," will take place on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. in the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center at the University of Maine.



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The Jackson-based group Native American Jump Start has been providing grants to Native students, interns and young workers for decades and this year, has added an ambassador program.

Nine ambassadors across the country will help spread the word on Native American Jump Start opportunities, up to 100 microgrants per year to help, among others, students at any level of higher education.

Wicahpi Chaddlesone-Yankton, grant and operations coordinator for the group, said they want to highlight more student voices and half of ambassadors in the first cohort are current students.

"We wanted to have our ambassadors work with their Native student centers or organizations on their campus and just help bring NAJS's voice into a bigger light," Chaddlesone-Yankton explained.

The group is funded by private donations and therefore will be directly affected by cuts from the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Native American Rights fund in March sued the U.S. Interior Department and the Office of Indian Affairs over the federal administration's cuts to the Bureau of Indian Education.

O'Shay Birdinground comes from the Great Apsaalooke Nation and will graduate this spring from the University of Montana. He first used Jump Start funding to attend a conference. Now as an ambassador, Birdinground encouraged "future Indigenous leaders" to take advantage of educational opportunities.

"There are a lot of opportunities out there for education and leadership development," Birdinground emphasized. "I wouldn't hesitate to jump on any one of those opportunities that is provided to you."

The application period for Native American Jump Start's education grant funding for this fall opens April 1.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

Indigenous people have made great contributions to the state of Wisconsin yet the alarming rates of violence against them remains a public health crisis.

A new study showed intimate partner violence disproportionately impacts Indigenous women more than any other ethnic or racial group in the U.S. The murder rate for Native American women and girls is up to 10 times higher than the national average, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, yet they account for less than 1% of the population.

Desiree Tody, outreach program coordinator at the Center Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse and a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said violence against Native women is underreported and unaddressed.

"There's jurisdictional issues that come into play as to how things are investigated, how things are tried, and there's always racism," Tody observed. "There's less attention paid to the individuals that some of these things happen to."

The Wisconsin Department of Justice created a task force to combat violence against Native women across the state after legislation which would have addressed the issues failed to pass. There are currently no upcoming task force meetings listed on the newly updated DOJ website.

Poor tracking and data collection are among the many issues contributing to the epidemic among Indigenous women. During a multistate march last month, Tody read a list of names of Indigenous people from Minnesota who had died from domestic violence. No such list currently exists for Wisconsin and Tody noted she is working to change it.

She emphasized the great need to address the systems in place, which continue to fail Native people.

"I have three daughters that I want them to grow up as strong Native women and I want them to grow up safely as strong Native women," Tody explained. "This is their futures on the line. This is their ability to walk down a street safely."

Research shows Indigenous women also face significant barriers when seeking help after experiencing domestic violence. A survivor of domestic violence herself, Tody works with the Center Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse to provide resources for those affected in Bayfield and Ashland counties. Gov. Tony Evers has proposed a $20 million funding increase for domestic abuse services in his current executive budget.


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More than 14,000 incarcerated people in Washington are not able to vote and two bills in Olympia aim to change it.

One bill would make voting more accessible for people in jail by improving access to the voter's pamphlet and voter registration forms. Another would allow people in prison in Washington to vote for the first time in the state's history.

Charles Longshore is incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Men in Shelton. He does advocacy work from prison and said without the right to vote, it is not easy to get a legislator's attention.

"I've helped draft a bill that's before the legislature this session and leading on several other bills," Longshore pointed out. "But I find that it's difficult because you have no reason to be accountable to me."

Longshore is a Skokomish tribal member and said giving the vote to incarcerated people would help right historical wrongs against Indigenous people, who were not given the full right to vote until 1965. Data show Native Americans are vastly overrepresented in the criminal legal system.

Opponents of allowing people to vote from prison said voting is a privilege and breaking laws should mean you lose your voice.

Anthony Blankenship, senior community organizer for the advocacy group Civil Survival, said everyone is a constituent, whether they get to choose who represents them or not. He argued allowing incarcerated people to vote will help with their rehabilitation.

"We have to be able to see and understand what they need to be successful and what they need to not recidivate or go back to prison or harm anyone ever again," Blankenship emphasized.

Blankenship added it is unlikely the bills will pass this session but it is important to keep raising the issue.

"We have to keep on pushing," Blankenship urged. "We have to keep on saying that these are opportunities for people to be part of our community and not be on the outside looking in."