Many Nations Longhouse

Open to the public

“Something Spoken, Something Heard” workshop in the Many Nations Longhouse on March 7th at 7PM. A workshop production of Waylon Lenk’s (Karuk) multimedia storytelling play combining Karuk pikvah (or creation stories) and primary documents from the California Indian genocide. Please be aware that this piece contains audio descriptions of violence, and other complicated subject matter.

Waylon Lenk is Karuk from the villages of Ka’tim’îin and Taxasúfkara. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon, and the dramaturg on Yvette Nolan’s translations of Henry IV Parts 1and 2 for Play on!. He has worked at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s as a dramaturg on Off the Rails, The Winter’s Tale and Richard II. He has presented work as a dramaturg and director at Oregon State University’s Native American Longhouse Eena Haws, and as a storyteller at Portland Public Schools, the Piggyback Fringe Festival in Wakefield, Quebec, and at the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation’s U.S. Grant Hotel. His work approaches Native theatre from his positions as a dramaturg and a pikváhaan, or Karuk storyteller. As a dramaturg he actively promotes the work of Native playwrights and is involved research to extend the boundaries of what is considered “Native theater.” As a pikváhaan he uses tools from the field of theatre to (re)activate his people’s body of literature. His work has been funded by Oregon State University, Advocates for Indigenous California Languages, and the Yurok Tribe. He holds an M.F.A. in Dramaturgy from Stony Brook University, and a B.A. from Lewis & Clark College.