ABSTRACT
The communal experience of the tribal reality is at the core of what comprises an essential connection to the tribal world view. Indigenous theatre makers reference tribal aesthetics and modern Indigenous playwrights, tapping into the traditional story, are referencing ages of experience and Indigenous epistemologies. Indigenous knowledge or ways of learning and knowing are replicated in the story over and over, in performance, in practice, and now, in theory. In Native epistemologies, in Native realities, the practice comes first before the theory. In this chapter, I examine how Indigenous aesthetics translate into Indigenous dramaturgical praxis outside of Western dramaturgical processes (read Aristotelian poetics) and encourage playwrights to examine their own cultural aesthetics and practices to inform and enhance their playwriting practice.
