At its peak, the United States government supported more than 365 Indian Boarding schools across the country where thousands of Native children were placed after having been forcibly removed from their families. The first and most well-known of the schools was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, just under two hours away from Baltimore in Carlisle, PA. Recently, US Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland announced that she’ll lead a national investigation into the legacy of the residential system. In collaboration with Native American Lifelines, this Baltimore Butterfly Session will catalyze conversation about the generational impact of Carlisle and other schools like it. Featuring music from THE CARLISLE PROJECT by Laguna Pueblo & Cherokee composer Ronee Penoi, special words by longtime Indigenous community activist Michael Nephew, and a keynote from Jess McPherson of Native American Lifelines and the Circle Legacy Project, we’ll leave with a better understanding of the complex history of the residential schools in communities all over Turtle Island.
This event is free, please reserve your seat by clicking book tickets above.
The event is full at 200 attendees, so please arrive early to guarantee admission. RSVP alone does not guarantee admission to the event, there is a limited capacity – first come, first served.
Jess McPherson, Keynote Speaker
Jess McPherson is an award-winning multi-disciplinary fine artist, master craftsperson, and social impact strategist born and raised in York County, Pennsylvania. She has worked professionally as an artist since 2003, and since then, has served as gallery director for community arts center, YorkArts (now Creative York); independent teaching and showing artist/craftsperson; cultural educator for Native American LifeLines Urban Indian Health Program; powwow vendor; and gallery consultant. She currently serves as Finance Director for Native American LifeLines, this region’s Urban Indian Health Program, and serves as volunteer and former board member of the Circle Legacy Center, a Native American cultural awareness and preservation organization based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Jess has a Bachelor of Fine Art from Pennsylvania College of Art & Design (’05) and Master of Science in Nonprofit Leadership from University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice (’19). She is a University of Pennsylvania certified Arts & Culture Strategist as well as a Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen Master Artisan.
She is here today on behalf of the Carlisle Indian School Project and the Circle Legacy Center whose work centers on awareness, advocacy, and healing in Native communities.
Jess is a Susquehanna Indian of Shawnee and Pennsylvania German descent.
Michael Nephew
Michael Nephew is an actor, playwright, and theatre tech. He is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and is also of Seneca-Cayuga descent. His interest in theatre started in high school and then resumed theatre later in life. He has performed with a number of theatre companies in the Washington, DC area as well as in New York in a joint project with Eagle Project and Rebel Theatre. He has also appeared on camera. A couple of his plays have had productions with New Native Theatre and a couple have had readings with the American Indian Community House’s Native Theatre Thursday’s play readings. He has also been studied stage combat and has appeared on stage in that capacity. He has also choreographed Native dances for stage as well as having done fight choreography. He is also active in the local Native community.
Ronee Penoi, Musician
Ronee Penoi (Laguna Pueblo/Cherokee) is a composer, arts presenter, facilitator and activist. She is at work on two new musicals, The Carlisle Project and #RESIST with collaborator Annalisa Dias under the banner of FLORA MUSICALS, and is a two-time recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Individual Artist Fellowship for her musical composing work. Her music has been heard at the Hopkins Center for the Arts (Dartmouth College), The Tank (NYC), the Berlind (McCarter Theater), CulturalDC’s Mead Theater Lab, banished? Productions, bodiography dance, and more. She is a Sundance Institute Interdisciplinary Program Grantee, and has been commissioned by Pittsburgh Public Theater.
Ronee is currently Director of Artistic Programming at ArtsEmerson, Boston’s leading presenter of contemporary world theater. Prior to that appointment, she was Producer at Octopus Theatricals, advancing the work of many outstanding artists from development, to production, to touring in the US and internationally. These artists and projects include Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis (Activist Songbook), DeLanna Studi (And So We Walked), Phantom Limb Company (Falling Out), Ripe Time (Haruki Murakami’s Sleep), Homer’s Coat (An Iliad by Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson), Christine Jones’ Theatre for One, Poland’s Song of the Goat Theatre, and many more. Ronee is a proud NEFA (New England Foundation for the Arts) National Theater Project Advisor and is on the Working Consortium of First Nations Performing Arts. She is on the board of The Producer Hub, is a core collaborator with Groundwater Arts, and is a Co-Founding Member of The Industry Standard Group, which looks to expand investment opportunities for BIPOC commercial producers.
Ronee’s prior roles include NNPN Producer-in-Residence at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Senior New Play Producing Fellow and Directing Fellow at Arena Stage, and ASM for the national tour of Anna Deavere Smith’s Let Me Down Easy. Ronee is a two-time ISPA (International Society for Performing Arts) Global Fellow, and has been an APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals) Leadership Fellow and TCG (Theatre Communications Group) Rising Leader of Color. Ronee also spent three years with the Consensus Building Institute, a non-profit specializing in facilitation and mediation services. Her current anti-racism practice builds upon a decolonization framework and embraces systems change as a key component of that work. She graduated with honors from Princeton University with a degree in Music with certificates in Vocal Performance and Theatre & Dance.
Tiffany Underwood Holmes, Accompanist
Tiffany Underwood Holmes (Music Director) Upcoming projects include SHOW WAY a Musical (World Premiere, Kennedy Center) and Shakespeare in Love (Keegan Theatre). Selected area music direction credits include Miss You Like Hell (Baltimore Center Stage); Big River, Winnie the Pooh (Adventure Theatre); As You Like It (Keegan Theatre); The Last Five Years, john & jen, Mad Libs Live! (Red Branch Theatre) among many others. She is also a prolific coach, accompanist, collaborator, and voice teacher in the DMV area.
Chelsea Zeno, Singer
Chelsea Zeno (Singer) is an NYC based actor and singer. She recently performed in the World Premiere of Distant Thunder, a new Native American musical directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett. Past credits include Hunchback of Notre Dame with Fuse Productions (Esmeralda), In the Heights at TUTS (Vanessa), and Priscilla Queen of the Desert First National Tour (Cynthia/Diva U/S). Chelsea sings nationally with the Disney rock cover band The Little Mermen, and also sings with the NY based pop group Emergency Tiara. TYG!
Angela Gomez, Singer
Angela Gomez (Singer) is proud to be a descendant of native Yamici and Coclé tribes of Colombia and modern-day Panama. Originally from San Francisco, Angela is an NYC-based actress, singer, voice educator, and acting instructor. REGIONAL THEATRE: Distant Thunder, Lyric Theatre. NYC WORKSHOP: Romeo and Bernadette (Bernadette), Amas Musical Theatre. FILM: The Girl Who Loved Fire andVeranda. TELEVISION: Partner Track (Netflix). OTHER THEATRE: Safety Net, Times Square, Merrily We Roll Along, Heartlines, RENT, New York University. ADDITIONAL CREDITS: B.F.A. from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions: A civic dialogue series at BCS
Inspired by Citizen University’s Civic Saturdays, The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions will bring together music, poetry, literary excerpts and thought-provoking keynote addresses to catalyze conversation and build awareness around today’s most pressing issues. Tapping into some of the brightest voices around the nation and in Baltimore, each Butterfly Session will convene artists, activists, organizers and thinkers to unpack a civically resonant topic. Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across differences and stay firmly rooted in our local community. Come for the music, come for the poetry, come for the conversation.
Why “The Baltimore Butterfly Sessions”?
A symbol of growth and emergence, transformation and borderless migration, butterflies remind us that tiny shifts in one place can set profound change in motion. Butterflies also have a special resonance in Baltimore. You may or may not know that the city of Baltimore is sometimes referred to as a “Black Butterfly and White L.” According to Dr. Lawrence Brown of Morgan State University, “Baltimore’s hypersegregated neighborhoods experience radically different realities.” Typically, Black neighborhoods fan out to the east and west resembling the shape of a butterfly while white neighborhoods run down the center of the city in the shape of an “L.”
Through the Baltimore Butterfly Sessions, BCS aims to create a space for civic dialogue & fellowship across difference and stay firmly rooted in our local community.
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