Elisa Harkins’s most recent performance, Wampum, at the Museum of Contemporary Art is a bold statement of history, resistance, and celebration. The title refers to a form of currency used by Cherokee people as a symbol of agreement. As the title implies, Harkins delved into her own Cherokee and Muscogee identity to bolster and elaborate upon her story and her community’s traditions. A night that began as a unique interpretation of Indigenous Futurism blossomed into a searing exclamation of resilience. Indigenous Futurism is nomenclature referring to a wide variety of artists, writers, and thinkers who generally use technology and science fiction imagery to assert the presence of Indigenous people in the contemporary world.¹ The evening was split between two performers: Kalyn Fay and Harkins herself. In spite of how disparate their musical styles were, their individual on-stage charisma and lyrical content united Fay and Harkins as a solid bill.

        Kalyn Fay is a folk singer of Cherokee and Muscogee descent. She was accompanied by violinist Olivia McGraw, a close collaborator. Their minimal folk duet was a tender maelstrom. The intertwining guitar and violin accented each other so delicately, like the interplay of charcoal lines adding definition to a watercolor pastoral. Lyrically, Fay expressed the alienation of a person longing for the comforts of home while adrift in the world in a way that was reminiscent of Joan Baez or Vashti Bunyan.

         Wampum had a network-like structure. Not only did the concert have distinct parts, but there were also a multitude of events which culminated in the performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Harkins conducted a hand-drum construction workshop at the Center for Native Futures and invited the participants to appear during the concert to perform, tying this craft back into Wampum’s interpretation of pop music. Like pop music, hers was built upon the driving beats and rhythmic vocal delivery of the drum circle chorus. Additionally, a zine was given out to the audience prior to the performance containing the lyrics for each song in Indigenous languages as well as English—highlighting the bilingual nature of Harkins’ project. The concert itself was a moment of clarity, during which every one of these events came together to reveal the larger image.

        Harkin’s performance covered so much ground; it had an operatic quality. Wampum embodied the rich visuals and light shows of pop concerts and utilized projected animations, precise lighting changes, and back up dancers to enrich the music. The sounds of her music were an amalgam of eighties and nineties number-one hits, which spanned genres from R&B to House to Techno. She sported a variety of costumes specifically suited to each song. The costume styles took silhouettes and aesthetic cues from prairie dress but embellished them with technicolor panache and iridescent fabrics.

        Cate Owis was the most stridently political song. Harkins called for an uprising against an oppressive state, against U.S. colonialism, and against ignorance. A driving beat and confrontational delivery kicked off the performance. For Pony, back up dancers acted out a cowboy cabaret as Harkins strutted across the stage, her vocal delivery a reserved groove which punctuated each word. Deadly seemed to have the most autobiographical lyrics. It was about the day-to-day life of a Native woman—independent and strident in her identity. She makes her own decisions and makes her own way in life. Her message was one of self-actualization and celebration of life as a form of creative resistance.

        However, the most impactful portion of the evening came towards the end of the concert. Harkins introduced an interesting twist on the pop conventions she had been experimenting with as she brought out Danny Wesley to perform two Indigenous hymns. Harkins and Wesley explained to the audience that these songs have been preserved across generations; sung on the Trail of Tears, a violent forced migration of sixty thousand Indigenous people to Oklahoma. Afterwards, she brought out members from her hand-drum workshop (The Good Medicine Gang) and invited them to perform as a drum circle.

        Harkins’ performance drew a line from drum circles and hymns to contemporary pop culture. Pop music is rooted in these long-standing traditions and communities—part of the legacy of innovative Indigenous musicians from Link Wray to Ronny Spector. Wampum inverted this dynamic by reclaiming the conventions of pop music and expressing the realities of contemporary Native life. Harkins’s traditions formed the solid core of Wampum, which branched out to connect the dots to ethnomusicology and community building. The concluding inclusion of the hand-drum circle as well as the hymns revealed the essence of Harkins’s vision of Indigenous Futurism.

        Harkins’ performance exceeded the limits of a pop concert and transformed into a testament of Indigenous solidarity. Behind the veil of vibrant spectacle was interwoven messages of resistance, family, and survival. Her interpretation of Indigenous Futurism is more subtle than references to classic science fiction, because she suggests that Indigenous people will always have a place in the world, regardless of what society they are living in. Their traditions will be adapted into new forms and take on new appearances yet will never relinquish their historical significance. Elisa Harkins is living proof of that.

John Thomure is a performance artist and writer currently based in Chicago. His performance and writing practices fixate on local art history, ecology, and exploring underappreciated artists and their archives.

Footnote:

¹ Whitepigeon, Monica. “Indigenous Futurism Ushers in New Perspectives of Past, Present, and Future,” Native News Online, July 18, 2020, https://nativenewsonline.net/arts-entertainment/indigenous-futurism-ushers-in-new-perspectives-of-past-present-and-future