Charting New Destinies: Native Voices in Opera with ShanDien LaRance, Robert Mesa, and Ehren Kee Natay

Join Key Change for one last spin around the season six universe. Co-hosts Anna Garcia and Olga Perez Flora recall their favorite moments, including reflections on the exciting collaboration between Santa Fe Opera and the University of New Mexico. 

Then, the Key Change team transports us to the first-ever libretto reading workshop for NOVA. Meet the cast of this intergalactic opera and discover how they're interpreting familiar sci-fi tropes, such as colonization, survival, and belonging, through a uniquely Indigenous lens—featuring Robert Mesa (Navajo Nation and the Soboba Band of Mission Indians), ShanDien LaRance (Hopi, Tewa, Navajo and Assiniboine), and Ehren Kee Natay (Diné/Kewa Pueblo).

NOVA combines Indigenous futurism and humor with a choose-your-own-adventure ending to examine existential questions of personal responsibility and integrity. "That's very much how many Indigenous tribes are bringing up their children," explains Ehren, a multi-disciplinary artist who plays KID. "Not by telling them what to do or how to be, but to tell them these old stories that provide a moral compass of how your decisions will affect an outcome."

Robert, an accomplished film and TV actor who plays Doc, a member of the NOVA crew, welcomes this era of Indigenous collaboration in opera. "It's only within the past six or seven years that there has been a big burst of Native stories finally being put in the mainstream media," he observes. "We're breaking glass ceilings so generations behind us can flourish."

"To be a young Indigenous woman living in these times, I think a lot about our history, our traditions," adds ShanDien, a Native hoop dancer and instructor who plays NOVA. "But, I also carry with us that modernism and the way into the future and how we can sustain both."

KEY CHANGE RECOMMENDED EPISODES

NOVA: Opera After the End of the World

Taking Care of the Art with Chandler Johnson, Director of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers

Rise to the Occasion of Your Opera Career with Chandler Johnson, Director of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers

True Magic from Classroom to Stage with the Santa Fe Opera Young Voices and University of New Mexico Students

An Opportunity To Encounter Excellence (And Big News!)

Connections Across Time and Space: Opera in the Cosmos

FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Robert Mesa - Doc

ShanDien LaRance - NOVA

Ehren Kee Natay - Kid

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Hopi Nation

Navajo Nation

Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo

Santa Fe Opera Community Engagement

University Of New Mexico

Grey's Anatomy

Accused

Dark Winds

The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen

Appian Way Productions

Reservation Dogs

Flash Gordon

Star Trek

Star Wars

Alcina at Santa Fe Opera 2017

Jenůfa at Santa Fe Opera 2019

No Greater Act: Pueblo Resistance

Circles: Honoring Indigenous Santa Fe

Little Globe

Liz Lehrman Critical Response Method

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Key Change is a production of The Santa Fe Opera, Department of Community Engagement & Education.

Share your favorite opera moments and questions with Community Engagement: agarcia@santafeopera.org

Produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios

Hosted by Anna Garcia & Olga Perez Flora

Audio Engineering: Collin Ungerleider & Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe

Technical Director: Edwin R. Ruiz

Production Support from Alex Riegler

Show Notes by Lisa Widder

Theme music by Rene Orth with Corrie Stallings, mezzo-soprano, and Joe Becktell, cello

Cover art by Dylan Crouch

This podcast is made possible due to the generous support of the Hankins Foundation, Principal Education Sponsor of the Santa Fe Opera.

To learn more, visit SantaFeOpera.org/KeyChange.