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Groundworks

On San Francisco’s first official Indigenous People’s Day, a group of Native artists contributed a dance performance, Groundworks, to the annual Sunrise Ceremony on Alcatraz nearly 50 years after the Indians of All Tribes occupied the island. Their contemporary creative practices and activism help these artists work towards the reclamation of Native lands while restoring traditional ways.

  • Ian Garrett
    Director
  • Justine Garrett
    Writer
  • Tisina Parker
    Writer
  • Justine Garrett
    Writer
  • Justine Garrett
    Producer
  • Ian Garrett
    Producer
  • L. Frank
    Key Cast
  • Ras K'dee
    Key Cast
  • Kanyon Sayers-Roods
    Key Cast
  • Bernadette Smith
    Key Cast
  • Tia Taurere-Clearsky
    Editor
  • Tisina Parker
    Co-Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    56 minutes 29 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 1, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • PBS
    Nationwide
    United States
    October 1, 2022
    U.S. Premiere
Distribution Information
  • American Public Television
    Distributor
    Country: United States
    Rights: Free TV
Director Biography - Ian Garrett

Ian Garrett is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University, where he is Graduate Program Director for Theatre and Performance Studies. He is also producer for Toasterlab, a mixed reality performance collective. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, accessible technologies, and scenography. He is a graduate of Rice University and CalArts.

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Director Statement

Groundworks profiles four of the California Native co-creators of the “Groundworks” project—a performance on Alcatraz Island on San Francisco’s first official Indigenous People’s Day in October 2018. This project and the documentary were made in collaboration with many Indigenous artists.

While weaving together these artists’ stories and their contemporary ways of sharing traditional knowledge, the Groundworks documentary considers issues of land management, water rights, and food security—concerns for everyone, especially in an age of climate change.

We travel from traditional acorn gathering spots to the studios where the “Groundworks” performance was rehearsed before being shared after dawn, 50 years after the Indians of All Tribes occupied Alcatraz.

This documentary brings the audience into the lives of the collaborators as they face pressing issues as Native Californians. By exploring their creative practices and connections to their communities, this project highlights these Indigenous artists’ contemporary relationships to traditional territories of Pomo, Ohlone, Onatsatis, and neighboring communities and their efforts to “re-story” the land through creative reclamation. An important component of decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty is revealing the hidden, overlapping histories of place through art, performance, and story.

Profiled in the documentary are musician Ras K'Dee, Pomo, with ties to multiple bands in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties; Bernadette Smith, singer and dancer from the Manchester Point Arena Band of Pomo Indians; Kanyon Sayers-Roods, a multidisciplinary Ohlone artist from Indian Canyon, a sovereign Indian Nation outside of Hollister, California; and L. Frank, a Tongva-Acjachemen artist, tribal scholar, cartoonist, and language advocate. These artists, through their practices and activism, bring attention to contemporary Indigenous life in California.