DAKOTA CAMACHO PRESENTS, ETAK VIDEO AND LIVE MULTINATIONAL ZOOM CONVERSATION

We invite our communities to engage in the work of STTLMNT participating artist Dakota Camacho through Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant; a poetic recitation of ecologies relating to navigation, journey, lineage, birth and chosen kinship through extensive travel across the globe.

JOIN ETAK EVENT LIVE VIA YOUTUBE LIVE or FB LIVE
FRIDAY, MARCH 12 2021 - 5:30pm PST / 8:30pm EST + SATURDAY MARCH 13 2021 - 11:30 AM CHST

90 MINUTE LIVE ZOOM ENGAGEMENT

Artist Dakota Camacho will premiere their short film, Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant anchoring a very special live Zoom engagement featuring performance, artist talks and storytelling presented by artists, cultural bearers and scholars with global ties in Indigeneity, tuning in from Micronesia and throughout North America including; Cannupa Hanska Luger, Monaeka Flores, Ojeya Cruz Banks, Gabriel Teodros, Vince Díaz and Dakota Camacho. 

Etak (pronounced Eh-tack) loosely translates as triangulation and is a Micronesian seafaring technology, used in relationship to understanding the ocean-going vessel’s relationship to the movement of space and time. Etak is built upon the ethos in Micronesia that the canoe is stable and the universe moves around the canoe, this is a vessel for traveling through space and time, through the world as an Indigenous person who is of a global community yet from a specific place. 

In presenting this work and engagement, Dakota Camacho reflects, “This gathering will be a digital space for the co-creation of Indigenous knowledge and the understanding of our relationship to each other, as if all our canoes, waters and lands are moving in relationship to one another…” 

This program invites us into contemplation of our belonging: How does an Indigenous body exist with the land and the water? How do we exist with it instead of extract from it? How do we remember our ceremonies? Where do we go to regenerate our Indigeneity (outside of our ancestral lands). 

Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant, Dakota Camacho, 2021. Film image still, Photo credit: Futsum Tsegai 

“My family taught me to plot our course to home through building beautiful relationships to spaces, places, and kin. Ináfa’maolek is the energy that flows from our cultural practices. 

I endeavor to understand my relationship to being a good human by triangulating my relationship to the peoples, languages, cultural practices, and lands where I have experienced inágofli’e & ináguaiya.  Ináfa’maolek.” -Dakota Camacho

For artist Dakota Camacho, presenting Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant through STTLMNT Digital Occupation is personal. They are making and sharing this work to more deeply understand the purpose of life's journey and to further their connections across the world, reflecting, ‘What does place based Indigeneity mean to a person who navigates the globe encountering many cultures, communities, and histories and what are our responsibilities to extended kinships beyond a specific geography. Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant is the cinematographic articulation of the ceremony of gratitude to all the lineages that inform my body, mind, and spirit. This work is an offering, a deep sharing, a development of meditations on protocol, togetherness, of working towards making kin with one another, of entering into community, of practicing accountability, and of building a vision for the future that celebrates the possibilities of our collective liberation.” 

Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant engages a poetic recitation of wild ecologies relating to navigation, journey, lineage, birth and chosen kinship through extensive travel across the globe. It is a story of genealogy, of the vast heritage and culture beacons that inform and guide an understanding of what it means to be Indigenous. The visuals inform the poem, centering around the cultures and the places which guide and extend our collective worldview -- a portrait of how human beings are regenerated as we collaborate in solidarity with the elements. There is a reverence between us, the land and the more than human environment; we are our ancestors. This work reminds us that we are informed by the natural environment around us, we must pay respect to that root part of us, and always return. 

Etak is ritual. It is the process of deeply understanding the world around us, in relationship to self and to each other, to the land and the water. In this awareness we find our place and purpose, we create the space for the co-creation of knowledge, compassion, and understanding. When we come together, we are deepening our relationships to each other.

Gratitude 

MALI’E’ | ETAK is supported by a National Performance Network (NPN) Documentation & Storytelling Fund grant. The Documentation & Storytelling Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. For more information, visit npnweb.org