Lesher Center Presents: Contemporary Voices

Digital Programs

Beginning in 2024, Lesher Center’s Headliners Series adopted the use of digital programs meant to be viewed on mobile devices. By cutting our paper use and eliminating substantial printing costs we are sustaining our mission to elevate the arts in the greater Contra Costa region.

Please be considerate of other patrons and artists when viewing digital programs on your mobile devices. View digital programs before the performance begins or during intermissions.

Patrons who create distractions may be asked to leave.

Welcome

Land Acknowledgement

Meet the Panelists

About Re-Discovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project

Upcoming Lesher Center Events

Support Lesher Center

Program Details

Approx 90 minutes with no intermission

Welcome

Thank you for joining us!

Our Lesher Center Presents series is designed to bring audiences year-round entertainment and inspiring artistic voices through our Headliners Series, Center Repertory Company productions, and Bedford Gallery exhibitions.

At the Lesher Center you’ll find a diverse array of genres, artists, and themes at this beautiful home for incredible, innovative arts experiences. In the following pages of this digital program, we invite you to explore our programming and learn more—you won’t want to miss what you’ll find at the Lesher Center!

Peggy + Carolyn

Peggy White

Executive Director, Diablo Regional Arts Association

Carolyn Jackson

General Manager, Lesher Center for the Arts

Land Acknowledgement

Lesher Center and Bedford Gallery acknowledge and honor our presence on the unceded ancestral lands of the Me-Wuk (Bay Miwok), Yokuts, Muwekma, and the Confederated villages of Lisjan, now colonially known as Walnut Creek. The land from which we benefit continues to be a place of foremost importance to these indigenous peoples and their descendants.

With a commitment to honor the art, resources, and values of indigenous peoples and tribes, Lesher Center and Bedford Gallery recognizes the fundamental role they’ve played in our present-day programs. We’re grateful to our friends at the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust for their guidance as we continue to educate ourselves and to uplift and support indigenous communities. To

learn more about Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, and specifically how to pay Shuumi Land Tax to honor the indigenous community, please visit sogoreate-landtrust.org.

To learn more about the land that you reside on, please visit native-land.ca.

Meet the Panelists

TAZBAH CHAVEZ

Tazbah Rose Chavez (Dinè, Nüümü, San Carlos Apache) is a performance poet turned WGAnominated television writer and director from the Bishop Paiute Reservation. Tazbah is a CoExecutive Producer/episodic Director on FX’s Reservation Dogs. She has worked on SyFy’s Resident Alien, Peacock’s Rutherford Falls, directed on HBOMAX’s Sex Lives of College Girls and is a Writer/ Director on FOX’s new series, Accused. Tazbah has written ads for Nike N7, directed health and cultural preservation campaigns and PSAs for tribes throughout

California. She has performed her poetry in acclaimed spaces such as the Smithsonian - National Museum of the American Indian, Meow Wolf and the Grand Performances Stage to name a few. She holds a degree in American Indian Studies from UCLA and is the former co-chair of the Writer’s Guild of America Native and Indigenous Writers Committee.

Additionally, Tazbah was awarded the 2023 Changemaker Award by Film2Future, is the inaugural recipient of the 2024 Sundance Graton Fellowship for California Native Artists and has been recognized by the California Tribal Leaders Association and the city of Los Angeles for her work in film and television. Instagram: @tazbah

DANIELLE SEEWALKER

Danielle SeeWalker is a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation in North Dakota. She is a mother, artist, writer, curator, activist and businesswoman and is currently based in Denver, Colorado. Her visual artwork often incorporates the use of mixed media and experimentation while incorporating traditional Native American materials, scenes, and messaging. Storytelling is an integral part of her artwork and pays homage to her identity as a Lakȟóta wíŋyaŋ as well as her passion to redirect the narrative to an accurate and insightful representation of

contemporary Native America while still acknowledging historical events. Danielle is also a freelance writer and recently published her first book, Still Here: A Past to Present Insight of Native American People & Culture. She is very dedicated and involved in the Native American community and has served the past two years as CoChair for the Denver American Indian Commission. Through her work on the Commission, she has been involved in several pieces of legislation impacting the Native American community including; a law to abolish derogatory Native American mascots (2021) and an effort to create an Office and Liaison for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) investigations (2022 and 2023). Danielle considers

herself an “artivist” as she is able to voice many important topics through her artwork and also be boots on the ground to make change happen. Danielle’s exhibition Re-Discovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project runs from April 13 – June 23, 2024 at the Lesher Center for the Arts Bedford Gallery.

Instagram: @seewalker_art

TOMMY ORANGE

Tommy Orange is an author and filmmaker born and raised in Oakland, California. His debut novel, There There was a New York Times bestseller and named as one of the paper’s 10 Best Books of the Year for 2018. Its many honors include the 2018 PEN America Hemingway Award, The National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. His newest release, Wandering Stars, a follow up to There There, is a prequel and sequel following the lives of the

beloved characters centered in his debut novel. He earned his MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he now serves as faculty. Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

JACKIE KELIIAA Moderator

Jackie Keliiaa (Yerington Paiute & Washoe) is a comedian, writer, and actor. She has been featured on Comedy Central, Team Coco, Amazon Prime’s First Nations Comedy Experience and she voiced the character Bubble on Spirit Rangers (Netflix). Jackie wrote for the web series You’re Welcome America and was featured in the book, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem. She produces and hosts Good Medicine, an all-Native comedy show which has soldout theaters in the San Francisco

Bay Area and beyond. Jackie is a regular at Bay Area venues and has performed at San Francisco SketchFest, Punch Line San Francisco and Cobb’s Comedy Club.

Instagram: @jackiecomedy X: @jackiecomedy

Bedford Gallery in the News!

A new Walnut Creek exhibit showcases Native American voices Native American artists share their experience in photos and a panel discussion at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts

By MARTHA ROSS | Bay Area News Group

May 23, 2024

Installation view from “Re-Discovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project,” presented through June 23 at the Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek.

For too long, stories about Native Americans have been told by nonNative people, whether in movies, TV shows, books or the visual arts. That’s not the case with “ReDiscovering Native America: Stories in Motion with The Red Road Project,” a stunning exhibition of photos at Walnut Creek’s Bedford Gallery through June 23, or with a June 1 panel discussion, featuring leading Native American artists, including Oakland novelist Tommy Orange.

The exhibition showcases some 100 photos, personal stories and other artworks, collected by Red Road Project founders, Danielle SeeWalker and Carlotta Cardana. The photos document the lives of contemporary Native Americans, from the sweeping landscapes of remote reservations to their living rooms in towns

and cities, as they celebrate their communities, traditional practices and achievements, or give voice to the ongoing challenges of historic displacement and oppression.

SeeWalker also joins “There There” author Orange in the June 1 panel discussion. They will talk about their inspiration and process for creating their work. Rounding out the panel

Julian of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota and his son, Elijah. (Photo/Carlotta Cardana)

are: Tazbah Chavez, co-creator of the FX series “Reservation Dogs”; and moderator Jackie Keliiaa, a comedian, writer and actor known for Amazon Prime’s “First Nations Comedy Experience.”

Details: Both the photo exhibition and the “Contemporary Voices” panel discussion are presented at the Lesher Center for the Arts. The exhibition continues through June 23 in the Bedford Gallery, with a “pay-what-you can” admission. The panel discussion will be at 2 p.m. June 1 in the Margaret Lesher Theatre, with tickets costing $35$40. https://www.lesherartscenter.org/

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Fiesta Cultural 2023 Street Fair, Chavalos Danzas por Nicaragua, photo by Ben Krantz Studio

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