Say my name and I will live forever….Sheila. Lela. Jocelyn. Abbi. These are the women hidden within the statistics of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW) epidemic in the U.S. Meet them. See them. Say their names. They are “Who She Is”.By bringing these missing women to life on screen, through animation and first-person storytelling, we learn about their loves and losses and come to know their full life story, not just their tragedies or how they left this earth. Meet them.
Who She Is tells the story of four individual women caught in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) epidemic. By bringing these missing women to life on screen, through animation and first-person storytelling, the documentary aims to humanize the people behind the statistics. Audiences will learn each woman’s loves and losses and will come to know their story. Through these women, the documentary hopes to shine a light on the wider MMIW epidemic and gendered violence.
Jordan Dresser – Who She Is Co-Director
Jordan Dresser is the Co-Director and Co-Producer of Who She Is. From 2020-2022 he served as the Chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council leading Tribal affairs on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Jordan is also a journalist, filmmaker and through the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office plays a key role in repatriation of Tribal artifacts and ancestral remains.
Jordan has served as an advisor on the Not Invisible Act Commission through the Department of Interior. The Commission has been tasked with addressing the MMIW/P crisis by making recommendations for better coordination across law enforcement and intergovernmental organizations and supporting survivors and families. In September 2022 Jordan was recognized by President Joe Biden for being a “Uniter” at the United We Stand Summit part of the federal initiative to combat hate and extremism in the U.S.
Who She Is is Jordan’s 2nd collaboration with Caldera Productions and his directorial debut.
Sophie Barksdale – Who She Is Co-Director
Sophie Barksdale is the Co-Director and Co-Producer of Who She Is. She has been a producer with Caldera Productions since 2016, having relocated from Australia. During her time with Caldera, Sophie has had a hand in all the Caldera films, including Co-Producing the Heartland EMMY nominee, “The State of Equality” in 2020 and the PBS Independent Lens broadcasted feature, “Home From School: The Children of Carlisle” in 2021. Who She Is is Sophie’s directorial debut and first foray in animated film.
Outside of Caldera Sophie has a deep and abiding passion for social justice and a love of storytelling in all its forms. She is also very active in promoting the arts in her community. She serves on the Board of Directors at the Lander Art Center and is a Co-Founder of The Bossert Collective, a local non-profit that strives to create equity and promote diversity with high quality art in public spaces. Sophie sees Who She Is as a melding of all her passions and is excited to bring her love of different mediums to bear in this production, including elevating marginalized voices, and shining a light on a much needed issue.
Lela C’Hair: WHO SHE IS film participant
Lela C’Hair is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe and one of the featured women in the film WHO SHE IS about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Lela’s story illustrates the life-long risks that Indigenous women face with higher chances of gendered violence, abuse and human trafficking. Unlike the other stories featured in the film, Lela narrates her own story and bravely faces the camera to offer caution and her hopes for healing and action around the MMIW epidemic. Lela hopes that in sharing her story, she will be able to help others in similar situations.
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There will not be free shuttle service for this event.
As world travelers for nearly two decades, Rising Appalachia have merged multiple global music influences with their own southern roots to create the inviting new folk album, Leylines. Remarkably the band has built its legion of listeners independently — a self-made success story that has led to major festival appearances and sold-out shows at venues across the country.
Founded by sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, the band established an international fan base due to relentless touring, tireless activism, and no small degree of stubborn independence. However, for the first time, they opted to bring in a producer for the new album, teaming up with the legendary Joe Henry on the sessions. These were also their first recording sessions outside of the South. For 10 days, all six band members lived and recorded in a castle-like studio in Marin County, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As a result, a sense of unity and immediacy can be heard throughout their seventh album, Leylines.
“As far as recording goes, we’re open creatively, but we’ve often preferred elements of live recording. I mean, we’re folk musicians at our core,” Leah explains. “The experience of playing music together in one room, looking at each other, is the bedrock of what we do and how we’ve grown up with music. I think Joe very much felt that way as well. He was very clear at the beginning that he was going to encourage us to have as many elements of a live recording as possible.”
Although Leah and Chloe Smith consider their voices as their primary instrument, Leah also plays banjo and bodhran on the album, while Chloe plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo. They are joined on Leylines by longtime members David Brown (stand-up bass, baritone guitar) and Biko Casini (world percussion, n’goni), as well as two new members: West African musician Arouna Diarra (n’goni, talking drum) and Irish musician Duncan Wickel (fiddle, cello). The sonic textures of these two cultures are woven into Leylines, enhancing the stunning blend of folk, world, and urban music that has become Rising Appalachia’s calling card.
“Our songwriting ties into those traditions as well,” Chloe says. “With some of our original songs, it’s a reflection of the times. We’re folk singers and we consider this a folk album, so there’s a lot in there. There’s word of politics, of being women in the music industry, as well as a lot about our lives on the road.”
Indeed, Rising Appalachia has toured British Columbia by sailboat, traversed the U.S. and Europe by train, and engaged in immersive cultural exchange programs in Bulgaria, Ireland, Southern Italy, Central, and South America – not to mention the countless miles in a van. Tour highlights include: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco; Music Hall Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York; Boulder Theatre in Boulder, Colorado; and the Showbox in Seattle, Washington. The band consistently sells between 400 and 1500 tickets wherever they play, a testament to their loyal fan base.
Leah and Chloe grew up in urban Atlanta as the city’s hip hop scene began to flourish. They absorbed those rhythms through the music they heard at school, then traveled with their family to fiddle camps all across the Southeast on the weekends. The young girls weren’t all that interested in the old-time playing, but their parents were incredibly devout in their study and practice of Appalachian music.
After high school, Leah decided to postpone college and travel internationally. Feeling homesick while living in Southern Mexico, she looked for a connection to her past and taught herself how to play the banjo. “I realized that I wanted something from home that I could share, something that would tell people a bit more of the story of where I came from, other than the news,” she recalls.
A few years later, when Chloe came to visit her abroad, Leah offered some clawhammer banjo lessons. They didn’t necessarily realize it at the time but a musical partnership had been established. Upon their return to the United States, they recorded an album, which they considered an art project, to sell whenever they sang at farmer’s markets. They printed 500 copies, figuring that would last them a lifetime. However, when a local college professor heard them singing at a Christmas party, he booked them as part of a Celtic holiday concert in Atlanta. After two performances, every CD had been sold.
Surprised and overwhelmed, they mulled over a career as full-time musicians, then realized that performing could be just one component of a greater overall vision – one that includes advocating for social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and Indigenous rights.
“We’re able to filter in so many of our passions into this project,” Chloe says. “We do a lot of activism work. We do a lot of outreach. Leah is a visual artist and she can funnel her visual eye into the project. I love to write, so that comes in. There’s a big container and canvas for our life’s work here. Music is part of it, but there are a lot of other creative vehicles that are driving Rising Appalachia.”
Special guests on Leylines include folk hero Ani DiFranco, soulful songwriter Trevor Hall, and jazz trumpeter Maurice Turner. The album title alludes to the concept of invisible lines believed to stretch around the world between sacred spaces, bonded by a spiritual and magnetic presence. That deep sense of connection is key to understanding Rising Appalachia as a whole.
“Rising Appalachia has come out of this idea that we can take these traditions of southern music – that we’ve been born and raised with – and we can rise out of them, creating all these different bridges between cultures and stories to make them feel alive,” Leah says. “Our music has its foundation in heritage and tradition, but we’re creating music that also feels reflective of the times right now. That’s always been our work.”
Patrick Dethlefs
(Pronounced “DET-Lefs”)
Patrick Dethlefs’ songwriting crests like a humble Townes Van Zandt, innocent of his own haunting melodies and lyricism. Dethlefs’ music offers folk Americana with effortless sincerity at a time when many acts strive purposefully to revive the stripped-down feel of a musical history long past.
Over a year after Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange) reintroduced themselves on their 2021 self-titled LP, the pair shared a special surprise release: Watchhouse (Duo), a self-produced recording of Marlin and Frantz performing the most elemental possible arrangements of all nine songs from Watchhouse. It’s a project that captures the fundamental power of Watchhouse: Two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life.
Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. They’ve sold out iconic venues (Red Rocks, Ryman Auditorium) and attract hundreds of millions of streams while producing exploratory music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post).
2022 was filled with many endeavors including the American Acoustic Tour with Punch Brothers, headlining shows across the US, collaborating with Planet Bluegrass on Mabon, an autumn equinox concert series, and of course Watchhouse (Duo). In 2023, Marlin and Frantz will celebrate the release of Watchhouse (Duo) with a short run of shows that will feature just the two of them, harkening back to their earliest days of performing.
The Auditorium When the Auditorium was built in 1898 it was not as comfortable as it is today. The floor was dirt covered with sawdust. ”The children may play in the sand at their parents’ feet,” said the Chautauqua Bulletin. The auditorium was originally open on...
From Apple Orchard to National Treasure The oldest surviving structure at Chautauqua, built in 1882, Cottage # 200, is the Ranch House, aka the Superintendent’s House, the Stone Cottage, and the Keeper’s Dwelling, located by the windmill on the path that runs...
