ABSTRACT
Vera Starbard, Alaska Native and writer for the Disney animated children’s show, Molly of Denali, relates the story of her journey on reclaiming her native Tlingit language and the cultured messages inherent in their songs, performances, art, and the sharing of such knowledge within non-Western practices. This essay offers a Tlingit anti-colonial historical narrative and documents the ongoing resistance through the power of art and storytelling. The author delineates the highly structured forms of performance practiced for centuries in both outdoor amphitheaters and indoors, replete with large totem platforms for storytelling including a tradition of using masks for changing characters that was practiced for centuries until deemed illegal. Starbard brings her vast education and talent into her work with young Native theatre artists and provokes the reader to consider the word “art,” which has no Tlingit translation because “Art is in everything.”
