'Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock' — ASU Screening
Myron Dewey (Newe-Numah/Paiute-Shoshone), a filmmaker, activist, journalist and educator, is the featured speaker in the fall 2017 Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture and Community.
The series features two screenings of Dewey's film, "Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock": the first on Monday, Nov. 13 at Sun Devil Marketplace/College Ave. Commons in Tempe and the second on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Both events begin with a reception at 6 p.m. followed by the film at 6:45 p.m. Dewey will be present for a Q & A after the screenings, which are free of charge and open to the public.
Dewey is from the Walker River Paiute Tribe, Agui Diccutta Band (Trout Eaters) on his father’s side and Bishop Paiute Tribe on his mother’s side. He is founder and owner of Digital Smoke Signals, a social media and film company. He holds an Associate degree and Bachelor of Science from Haskell Indian Nations University and a Master of Arts from the University of Kansas.
"Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock," which Dewey co-directed with Josh Fox and James Spione, chronicles the #NoDAPL peaceful protests on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017, the film has been called “powerful” by the Hollywood Reporter and “an evocative wake-up call told as a visual poem” by IndieWire. "Awake" does not follow a single protagonist but instead forms a “pastiche” of narrative, mostly indigenous voices. Dewey’s drone footage adds both immediacy and perspective, making him “one of the most closely followed journalists to come out of the movement” (IndieWire). For Dewey’s work, "Awake" won the Special Founders Prize for Citizen Journalism at the 2017 Traverse City Film Festival – the festival founded by legendary documentarian Michael Moore.
The Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture and Community at Arizona State University addresses topics and issues across disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences and politics. Underscoring Indigenous American experiences and perspectives, this series seeks to create and celebrate knowledge that evolves from an inclusive Indigenous worldview and that is applicable to all walks of life.
ASU sponsors include the American Indian Studies Program, ASU Library, Department of English, Labriola National American Indian Data Center, Office of American Indian Initiatives and Red Ink Initiative. The Heard Museum is a community partner.