Body Acknowledgment

My body has white skin, a loud voice, a lot of height, some freckles, a widely accepted gender identity, and off-white teeth.

My body has been given citizenship, an education, loving parents, food to eat every day, and a roof over it’s head.

When I enter space, I carry these things - I cannot put them down. These body identifiers have a strong relationship to how I’m treated, how my voice is heard, how much trust people have in me, whether or not my stories are believed, how much respect I’m given, and an assumption that I will be leading the rooms I enter.

My joyful work is about recognition, naming, and inviting others that share my body traits to notice, listen, follow, and be humble - small work on a long road toward justice.

Land Acknowledgment

I was born on the stolen land of the Roseau River Anishinabe in the southern edge of what is now called Manitoba.

I was raised mostly on the stolen land of the Potowatomi in the northern edge of what is now called Indiana.

I currently reside in the stolen land of the Gila River and the O’odham of what is now called Arizona.

The logic of the settler and the colonizer has flowed through my education, culture, and worldview. It is my constant work to unsee land as owned, to unsee people as primitive or advanced, to unsee resources as exploitation-ready, to unsee mass urban development as progress, to unsee progress as necessary.

A question we meditate on: how long is the memory of justice?

Ancestry Acknowledgment

I come from an ancestry of Mennonites. Many were farmers, some were laborers, some went to school a lot, some looked down their nose at others, some had a sense of humor.

The aspects of my ancestry I would like to pass on are a heritage of peace-making, hospitality, justice work, skepticism toward nations, truth-telling, and service toward others as a way of life.

Information Acknowledgment

I have the capacity to make new knowledge, but the vast majority of what I do, say, teach, and make is simply me remembering and applying the knowledge given to me by others.

Below is an incomplete list of people who have taught me and one thing I’ve learned from them.

Behind each of these names are whole volumes of wisdom.

Joyce Rosario - that it is important to acknowledge things

John Borstel - that pleasure belongs in artmaking

Duane Stoltzfus - how to write on a deadline

Rhoda Stoesz - how to challenge classism with humility

Doug Caskey - how to convincingly trip on stage

Dennis Stoesz - that it is important to write things down

Anna Kurtz Kuk - how to make room for students to lead work

Gloria Bontrager-Thomas - how to show up early

Jon Shetler - that vulnerability can cross political lines

Jessica Cerullo - what open, rigorous leadership can feel like

Margaret Kemp - how to finish something 

Erika Moore - that talking to yourself can be celebrated

Aaron Kaufmann - that there’s always room to be silly

Jeff Stoesz - that without food, you have nothing

Liz Lerman - that discomfort can be transformed in a million different ways

Donta McGilvery - that disagreements don’t need to break communities

Alejandro Tey - that fantasy games can teach real lessons

Savannah Blitch - that you can create your own style

Alison Brookins - that it’s easy to get to work

Michelle Milne - how to ask your collaborators to trust you

Allison Mills - that “having a point” isn’t always needed

Jerry Peters - how to make a big mistake and keep working

Anna Spelman - how to focus a camera

Bill Partlan - that group conflicts can be untangled with simple words

Jamal Brooks-Hawkins - that the order in which you tell a story matters

Bria Woodyard - that fearlessness can be easy 

Camryn Lizik - that communities can be dynamic and expansive

Dan Tobin - that you can be proud of the work you’ve done

Elisa Gonzales - how to weave many histories together 

Jon Spelman - that simple stories can be magnetic

Elizabeth Johnson - how much work can get done in a single day

Fargo Tbakhi - that you can teach someone to love themselves

Heidi Siemens-Rhodes - how to show up when you’re dying

Ed Stoesz - that each day we have the chance to help someone

J. Casalduero - that the smallest details can tell giant stories

Jake Pinholster - that you can treat your mentors like peers

Jessica Baldanzi - how to love a good comic book

Richard Lehman - it gets easier after 100 years

Dale Shenk - that you can make your own path for learning and follow it

Xanthia Walker - how to follow the voices of young people

Neda Mohaved - how to warmly invite people into big knowledge

Ruth Lehman - that books are your friends

Nik Zaleski - how to work your ass off for what you believe

Peter Nagy - that no matter how bad things get, you can always tell a joke

Rachel Bowditch - that elegance in theatre can be simple

Bonnie Eckhart - how to stop working when a student enters your office

Stefano De Vida - how to give your whole self to a project

Stephen Christensen - how to name a boundary with kindness

Sara Stoesz - how to make zwieback for a large group of people

Kevin Ormsby - that if you are not well, your work is not well

Eric Kanagy - how to begin working as soon as a thought enters your head

Trent Flores - how to be a calm lake in the middle of chaos

Vanessa Hofer - what it means to be precise when you make a decision

Vickie Hall - how to constantly be inviting people in

Young Nae Choi - how to change your outlook by walking slower

John Perovich - how to make editing a joyous process

Raji Ganesan - how to get to work, where you are, no matter what

Ken Eklund - how fun it can be to invite people into imagination space

Kyra Jackson - how to weave trauma and science together

Lance Gharavi - when to emphasize something and when to pause

Lizbett Benge - how to form structure, break structure, form structure

Matthew Ragan - that if you’re panicking, just wait 5 minutes

Hira Ismail - that the stories we speak to ourselves matter

Muneera Hashmi - that you can always ask: “What else?”

Lindsey Nance - how to be generous in the theatre

Nikki Rosengren - that there are invisible doorways to joy everywhere

Michael Rohd - how to generously listen without indicating agreement