We Left Them Nothing: Interview with Demian Dinéyazhi'

In this episode artist Demian DinéYazhi´ speaks with Broken Boxes about their practice, navigating the contemporary art world and online spaces and they read excerpts from their poetry works including An Infected Sunset and unreleased materials from their forthcoming publication We Left Them Nothing.

Demian DinéYazhi´ (born 1983) is a Portland-based Diné transdisciplinary artist, poet, and curator born to the clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) & Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water). Their practice is a regurgitation of purported Decolonial praxis informed by the over accumulation and exploitative supremacist nature of hetero-cis-gendered communities post colonization. They are a survivor of attempted european genocide, forced assimilation, manipulation, sexual and gender violence, capitalist sabotage, and hypermarginalization in a colonized country that refuses to center their politics and philosophies around the Indigenous Peoples whose Land they occupy and refuse to give back. They live and work in a post-post-apocalyptic world unafraid to fail. 

Follow their work on IG:

@heterogeneoushomosexual

@riseindigenous

Song featured: Nice Guy by WEEDRAT

This episode first aired June 21, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming on July 16, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

This episode is now streaming on iTunes & Spotify

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

The Beatbox Queen Ashley Saywut?! Moyer: On Becoming A Dominant Female Act

Ashley Moyer aka Saywut?! is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Widely known for her unique talent of Beatboxing (producing sounds and beats through her mouth), Ashley is an award winning female beatboxer. 

Photo credit: Morningstar Angeline 2021

She has been a fixture in the hip hop scene from coast to coast performing for Federal and state educational, environmental, and humanitarian aid workshops through the use of non-traditional, alternative music outlets.

Ashley’s performances and workshops are directed towards community awareness and development through education and acceptance of alternative music outlets. Her social and cultural workshops include Sequoia Adolescent Treatment Center, Albuquerque Public Schools, Santa Fe Public Schools, The Girls Ranch, Santa Fe Indian School, the YDDC (ABQ Youth Detention Center), and New Mexico Youth Organized.

She toured Europe in 2011 with CocoRosie as their beatboxer and was a guest of La MaMa Theater in Manhattan, NY during their annual North American Human Beatbox Festival both years of 2010 & 2011.

More recently she was featured in Tom Tom Magazines Museum takeover of MoMa PS1 in Queens, NY and the Brooklyn Museum for The Verbal History Of Female Drummers.

Ashley also taught incarcerated teen girls in 2013 how to produce, write and record their own music which was released through the non-profit New Mexico Jazz Workshop.

She currently performs and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico and recently started her own skincare business, Beatbox Beauty Company. 

This episode first aired June 07, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming on July 16, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

This episode is now streaming on iTunes & Spotify

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

Indigenous Women In Film: Interview with Tia Taurere-Clearsky

Tia Taurere-Clearsky of Whaea Productions is Indigenous from the Ngāpuhi/Te Aupōuri Nations of Aotearoa (New Zealand), lives on Coast Salish Territory of Turtle Island (North America/Canada) and was born in the Koolin Nations (Melbourne Australia).

Tia immigrated to Coast Salish Territory Turtle Island to be with her husband Curtis Clearsky, who is of First Nations Blackfoot/Anishinaabe Nations.

One of her passions is striving to create International Solidarity by building synergies between Indigenous, Activists and Creative communities. She believes in working towards Tino Rangatiratanga, Self Determination for all peoples, through Creative Resistance, Creative Communications. She has skills in multimedia production, critical analysis of the world we live in today and a deep respect for our Earth Mother Papatūānuku .

Tia’s production company Whaea Productions is named after the Māori word Whāea is pronounced like “Fire”, our ‘wh’ is an ‘f’ in english. Whāea is a mother, an aunty, a teacher, an older woman who is nurturing, caring, a knowledge keeper and a leader in the community.

https://www.whaeaproductions.com

Music featured on this episode is by Tia’s husband Curtis Clearsky and the Constellationz:

Indigifunk
Broken Treaties

This episode first aired May 24, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming on July 16, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

This episode is now streaming on iTunes & Spotify

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

Trans Solidarity, Interview with Shelby Chestnut, music by Shea Diamond

Shelby Chestnut is the Director of Policy and Programs at the Transgender Law Center (TLC), the countries largest trans led organization. Shelby’s work focuses on supporting the leadership of transgender people of color around the US, to ensure they are alive and thriving. Prior to TLC, Shelby served as the Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy at the New York City Anti-Violence Project for 6 years. Shelby holds a BA from Antioch College and an MS in Public Policy from the New School. Shelby has dedicated their career to organizing and mobilizing LGBTQ people, people of color and low income communities to ensure policies are informed by the people directly impacted by economic inequality and violence. https://transgenderlawcenter.org

Music featured by Shea Diamond:

I am Her
American Pie
I Am American
Don’t Shoot

Interview excerpts from the conversation: Shea Diamond: On Being Trans 'My Existence Was A Rebellion'

Shea Diamond is a singer and songwriter who makes soul-rooted music of resistance and liberation. Based in New York City, she was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and spent portions of her upbringing in Memphis, Tennessee and Flint, Michigan. Repressed and marginalized throughout her childhood for not accepting her gender role, she ran away at the age of 14 and entered foster care. Upon her emancipation, she lacked the means to pay for gender reassignment surgery, committed armed robbery, and spent roughly a decade in prison. While incarcerated, she developed her powerful singing style and forthright approach to songwriting. Shea was released from prison in 2009 and relocated to New York. She continued to work on music and became deeply involved in the transgender rights movement. It was Shea's a cappella performance of “I Am Her”, which we heard the version of to open this broadcast, at a Black Trans Lives Matter event that caught the attention of Justin Tranter, a songwriter who has worked with artists such as Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, and Gwen Stefani. With Tranter as her producer, Diamond is focused on lending her voice to those who have none.

This episode first aired May 17, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming Summer 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

This episode is now streaming on iTunes & Spotify

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

On The Land: Black Belt Eagle Scout

Conversation and live music with Indigenous music artist Black Belt Eagle Scout aka Katherine Paul and BBES live drummer Camas Logue live from KP's ancestral homelands in Swinomish territory.

Katherine Paul or KP is a Swinomish and Iñupiat musician and visual artist creating under the name Black Belt Eagle Scout. KP writes the foundation of her music on guitar, adding other instrumentation such as drums, bass, vocals, keys and percussion when recording and has put out two records thus far under the moniker of Black Belt Eagle Scout.

Camas Logue as a Klamath/Modoc/Yahooskin & Irish interdisciplinary artist who plays drums and guitar in Black Belt Eagle Scout’s live band. Camas has toured in the band internationally, playing live and in radio performances Camas has collaborated with BBES in the Loss and Relax 7” album, in which his painting, Swinomish Stinta, is the focal piece on the cover. He has also collaborated on various BBES merch designs including an intaglio print turned t-shirt design and line drawn sticker designs.

Featured on this broadcast are two live acoustic songs performed for this broadcast by BBES:
At The Party from the album At The Party With My Brown Friends
Soft Stud for the album Mother of My Children

Music featured at the end of the conversation by BBES:
My Heart Dreams from the album At The Party of My Brown Friends

This episode first aired May 10, 2021 for Broken Boxes on Radio Coyote, a project initiated by Raven Chacon and CCA Wattis Institute, on the occasion of Chacon's 2020-21 Capp Street Artist-in-Residency. Radio Coyote is currently produced by Atomic Culture and will transition to new programming on July 16, 2021. www.radiocoyote.org

Photo Credit: Razelle Benally, Film Still of Black Belt Eagle Scout short documentary feature from Red Brigade Films series for STTLMNT, 2020

This episode is now streaming on iTunes & Spotify

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast