Dance Maker Academy students are going to be busy this fall.
Art Maker LLC, the nonprofit parent company of Dance Maker Academy, recently received a $14,000 grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance to produce “Coyote and the Ant,” a new ballet to be performed next spring.
They received the Artistic Innovations Grant and were one of two art institutions in Oklahoma to be awarded. Dance Maker is also known for the WahZhaZhe Ballet, which tells the history of the Osage people.
“The Osage danced before a raid, they danced before a hunt, they danced to the beat of the drum, they danced to the prayer songs, and sometimes they just danced,” Osage elder Kathryn Red Corn said. “What better way to tell the Osage story than through a ballet that expresses the rich culture of a warrior people that controlled a large part of what is now called the United States of America.”
According to the Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), “Coyote and the Ant” will be produced through modern symphonic music, Osage language narration, and expressive ballet. Dance Maker aims to empower and educate the community through dance and cultural exchange. The premiere will be at the Constantine Theater in May 2025, with additional performances to come in schools and the community.
Director of Dance Maker, Randy Tinker Smith, came upon the Artistic Innovations grant and applied. The M-AAA sent an email after Dance Maker received the grant.
“My focus is always about the students and the tribe,” Smith said. “This time it’s going to affect the tribe because language is involved. But anything I can do to bring opportunity to our kids, that’s why I apply for grants. That’s why we keep the school open.”
Dance Maker Academy is a non-profit organization that offers a safe place for students to study dance and drama. The arts build discipline, offers fun ways to keep active, and encourages mental health.
“We are thankful to receive this grant which will open up more opportunities for our students,” she said. “And we’re going to do Coyote and the Ant. Language had put a video on it, and Chris Cote was telling the story in Osage. When Jenna and I saw the video, we thought it would be a great story to put to a ballet. If you can use art to teach, you can learn so much more. We could draw more people to listen to the language, be interested in learning the language. It’d be a good way for people to learn that story in Osage, which would boost vocabulary. Art is a great facilitator to knowledge.”
The “Coyote and the Ant” ballet has collaboration from many Osages. Wendy Ponca will design the costumes, Andrew Tinker will compose the music, and Jenna LaViolette, the director of dance at Dance Maker, will choreograph the ballet. Dance Maker is working with the Osage Nation language department to incorporate language into the ballet.
“For me when I choreograph, I listen to the music over and over,” LaViolette said. “I write out counts, I do a general layout of what I think, how many dancers I want, where they’re at, what kind of steps I want, and from there I start moving. Sometimes things work great that I envision in my head and sometimes they don’t, and you just have to find something different.”
The grant will help with the expenses of putting on a ballet production, as it can get expensive over the course of development.
“The biggest expense for this production is going to be having the music written,” she said. “Our cousin, Andrew Tinker, writes music for film. He is currently working on the music for me right now. We’re going to have, hopefully, a rough draft, by the end of the month. The story is pretty short, and we’re just going to try to tell the story using dance.”
The grant will also go to the costumes and creating the set for the production.
LaViolette believes that this grant and the creation of a new production will give dancers more opportunities.
“This gives the students another opportunity to perform and the fact that they will get to be the first ones to premiere it first, that’s really exciting for them and something they can put on their resume,” she said. “It’ll be a little bit of a different experience for them, me creating a new piece on them.”
Christine Bial, the Director of Arts & Humanities Grants Program at Mid-America Arts Alliance, said the application submitted by Art Maker stood out.
“We are so thrilled to have Art Maker as one of our grantees this year,” Bial said. “This project caught the eye of panelists who were reviewing the materials. They really thought it was a great application, and the project reflected a unique and much-needed perspective, that they took a sensitive approach to their goals and their work, and many of them hoped that they got a chance to see the work.”
The panelists thought that Dance Maker was taking the opportunity to address different things around Native American culture.
“One of the panelists said they appreciated the way that the application named stereotypes and harmful narratives around Native American culture and that this project was addressing ways of shifting that conversation,” she said. “And that struck them as a really important aspect of the application.”
Smith said that Dance Maker Academy would not exist if it weren’t for two famous Osage prima ballerinas.
“We would not have a ballet school or a ballet at all if it weren’t for Marjorie and Maria Tallchief,” Smith said. “Every single non-Osage has asked me, ‘Why ballet?’ But never has an Osage asked me that question ever, because it’s become part of our culture.”
Dance Maker Academy offers classes in ballet, pointe, jazz, tap and drama. Students can enroll if they are three or older and are potty trained. There will be an open house to register for dance classes on Saturday, Aug. 17 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 400 Palmer Ave. Classes will begin Aug. 19.
The Artistic Innovations is a matching grant. Dance Maker will be required to raise the matching $14,000. If anyone would like to donate to this project, you can visit osageballet.org on the support page.
