WIND Performance

The performance debuted at Jerry Smith Park, set against Kansas City's last remaining tallgrass prairie. This free, public event featured dance, song, textile art, and storytelling, followed by a Q&A session and refreshments at the Mid-Continent Public Library – Grandview Branch.

WIND is an intercultural, Indigenous performance and workshop spearheaded by artistic directors Amado Espinoza (Qhichwa), Maura García (non-enrolled Cherokee/Mattamuskeet), and Yura Sapi (Kichwa), who collaboratively devised a multimedia performance exploring the element of wind and its connections to creation, land, and storytelling.

WIND is rooted in the traditions of Indigenous peoples from North and South America, honoring millennia-old practices of travel, trade, and intermarriage — and seeks to counter colonial forces that disrupted these cultural exchanges by harnessing the untamed spirit of the wind for collective creation and shared dreaming.

Maura García on the wind

“Underneath the pavement of Kansas City is prairie land. Unlike the grasses which struggle to exist anymore, the wind doesn't care about the buildings or cars or people. It is still wild and untamed and forever invisible,” shares García. “It is fast and carries words, sounds, and prayers throughout the whole world. It is ever-present in the form of air. Without it, we are dead in a matter of minutes. And yet, we cannot see it. We feel its presence or gauge its movement and patterns by the way it moves other objects. Wind in the form of a tornado can destroy an entire house, yet leave a cabinet full of delicate ceramics untouched. It caresses our skin and it brings down trees. It is magic.”

Event details

The performance debuted in the Auditorium at the Woodneath Library Center on February 23, 2025 at 2pm CST. Immediately following the performance, there was an artist talk facilitated by Osage author Jimmy Lee Beason II, and afterwards, refreshments in the lobby provided by Indigenous-owned coffee shop Cafe Corazon.

The Woodneath Library Center campus features plantings of grasses and wildflowers native to the prairie ecosystem that once covered much of the greater Kansas City region. The artists invited people to arrive at the campus early to walk the trails and experience the interaction between the prairie landscape and prairie wind.

Support & Acknowledgements

This project is supported by a grant from the MAP Fund. Choreography creation is facilitated through a residency at Houston Met Dance. The project's essayist is supported by the DEMIL Art Fund. International artist travel supported by The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.