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OPEN STUDIOS | Lineage Is a Verb: Curated by Ty Defoe

May 7 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Portrait of an Indigenous artist wearing a magenta patterned shirt with a blurred city skyline in the background.
OPEN STUDIOS | Lineage Is a Verb brings together Indigenous women and non-binary artists
across three generations in a shared space for making, remembering, and becoming.
Curated by Ty Defoe, this evening invites audiences into a living conversation across time,
lineage, and artistic practice.

Presented in honor of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) week, the work centers
presence over erasure—asking how Indigenous femme bodies carry knowledge, resist patriarchy, and practice
survival through art. Here, lineage is not inherited alone; it is enacted in relation.

Event Details

  • Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
  • Time: 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM (Eastern Time)
  • Venue: CPR – Center for Performance Research
    361 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211
  • Tickets: Pay what you can, $0–$25
  • Curator: Ty Defoe

Program

  • Dawn Avery: Where is she?
  • Jolie Cloutier: Tomato Season
  • Jessica Ranville: Work-in-progress performance sharing

About Tomato Season

Tomato Season, written and performed by Jolie Cloutier, a member of the Onondaga Nation’s
Wolf Clan, follows a young Native American woman navigating pregnancy in the contemporary United States.
The piece explores generational trauma, religious trauma, motherhood, abortion, and the realization of not
being ready for something you have always wanted.

Told through an Indigenous lens, Tomato Season approaches a complex topic with hope, honesty,
and self-grace.

About OPEN STUDIOS

OPEN STUDIOS is CPR’s series of work-in-progress showings held throughout the year.
Organized by guest curators, the series serves as an incubator for new work and invites the public into
the artistic process.

Featured Artists

Ty Defoe is a citizen of the Anishinaabe and Oneida Nations and a Grammy Award-winning writer
and interdisciplinary artist whose work spans performance, land-based practice, technology, and decolonial futurity.

Dawn Ieri’hó:kwats Avery is a Grammy and NAMA-nominated performer, composer, professor, and artist
whose work draws from sacred world traditions, including her Kaniènkéha (Mohawk) heritage.

Jolie Cloutier is a New York City-based actor and writer and a member of the Onondaga Nation
Wolf Clan. Her work celebrates Indigenous identity through theater, writing, and performance.

Jessica Ranville is a Red River Métis performer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, with Off-Broadway,
regional theater, teaching, and movement credits across New York and beyond.

Join CPR for an intimate evening of Indigenous performance, process, memory, and creative survival.

Details

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