PlayPenn (in residence at The Drake Theatre) stands on the land known as “Lenapehoking,” the ancestral land of the Lenape people, colonially referred to as Philadelphia.

 

We hope to honor the indigenous people, their elders past and present, as well as future generations. We also want to acknowledge that, after there was stolen land, there were stolen people.

 

We recognize the generations of displaced and enslaved people that built, and continue to build, the country we occupy today.

 

Let’s also take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technologies, structures, and ways of thinking we use every day.

 

We are using equipment and high speed internet not available in many indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we make leaves significant carbon footprints, contributing to changing climates that disproportionately affect indigenous peoples worldwide.

 

We invite you to join us in acknowledging all this as well as our shared responsibility: to make good of this time, and for each of us to consider our roles in reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship. Thank you.

 

Thank you to Adrienne Wong who is the author of the second half of that acknowledgement, specifically about the impact of technology on the land we occupy.