Bently Spang, a visiting University of Wyoming professor and artist from Northern Cheyenne, presented his performance art piece, “Tekcno Pow Wow” last night in the Union Ballroom as part of this year’s Shepard Symposium. A mix of techno music and traditional forms of dance, Sprang uses his art to express his take on everyday oppression.
Sprang created a performance art piece with different perspective on traditional Pow Wow dance. The Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment, which was awarded to the American Indian Studies program, is the sponsor for Spang’s stay. The Pow-Wow will also be sponsored partially from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.
Dr. Angela Jamie, associate professor of the American Indian Studies program, is eager to have students see Spang’s art come to life.
“He uses strong components of rave like materials,” Jamie said. “He uses techno music, break and traditional Pow-Wow dancers to convey his message on being equals.”
Spang has a MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison along with a Bachelors Degree from Eastern Montana College in Billings. But his passion lies in educating his students and others on culture and equality, specifically of Native Americans.
“Everyone feels they know who native people are and yet they continually put us in a specific time period,” Spang says on his website. “You never hear ‘Indian’ and ‘future’ in the same sentence.”
Each year, the symposium declares a message for the entirety of the week. Jaime believes this year’s message truly hits on problems we face today.
“Everyday oppression taking action is the theme for the symposium this year,” Jamie said. “We realized, when planning, that people face challenges daily and we wanted to shine light on all the acts of everyday injustice in society.”
Using dancers and audience participation, Spang challenges spectators to “dance a mile in each other’s moccasins, sneakers, ballet slippers, or whatever the case may be to gain insight into another’s cultural experience,” according to the event website.
The Shepard Symposium is celebrating its 18th year hosting the event at the University of Wyoming. Named after the Matthew Shepard tragedy in 1998, the group promotes awareness on the social injustices in the world.
“I joined seven years ago as a facilitator,” Jamie said. “Now a chair member for four years, I thought, ‘why not do this? It might be rewarding and fun.’”
With a variety of events to come throughout the week, Jaime hopes the events encourage students to become active in voicing their stand injustices in society.
“Students and community members are encouraged to send in proposals to the symposium to give us ideas on what to do next year,” Jamie said. “We have received 47 this year and 45-60 the past four years.”
With an eye toward a better future, Jaime and Sprang continue to promote the hope and dreams of bringing awareness to injustices by reaching out to students and the community to get involved.
“You don’t have to ask to take a stand in something you believe in,” Jaime said. “We create this variety of events so that anyone can participate. We’re like a team; we work together for a great cause.”
