DeGraw Street between Court and Smith Streets in Carroll Gardens turns into a powwow ground Saturday, as dancers, drummers, and singers from across the Northeast gather for a free block party marking 50 years of Spiderwoman Theater. The event runs from 1 to 5 p.m. and is open to the public, with Indigenous vendors, speakers, and screened excerpts of the company's work rounding out the afternoon.
The Block Party Pow Wow was organized by Josephine Tarrant, a curator and La MaMa resident artist whose credentials include a degree from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, according to Spiderwoman Theater. As reported by Gothamist, Tarrant said the event is meant to help local Native people feel comfortable and connected to community, noting that powwow organization requires a lot of work but that New York City has limited space suitable for hosting one in the first place.
Tarrant is the granddaughter of Muriel Miguel, who co-founded Spiderwoman Theater in 1976 alongside her sisters Gloria Miguel and Lisa Mayo, per the same Gothamist account. The company describes itself as the oldest continually running Native feminist theater company in the Americas and has never had a permanent home, according to the outlet. Muriel Miguel grew up in Brooklyn and has said she started telling stories in response to sexist behavior she encountered, the report notes.
A Block Chosen for Its History
The choice of DeGraw Street was not incidental. The Miguel family selected the block to honor the historic Native American community that once spanned Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook from the 1930s through the 1950s, according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Between the 1920s and 1960s, neighboring Boerum Hill became known as Little Caughnawaga, home to an estimated 700 to 800 Mohawk ironworkers and their families living within a ten-block radius, as detailed by History.com. That community centered on hubs like the Wigwam Bar on Nevins Street and Cuyler Presbyterian Church on Pacific Street, which held monthly services conducted in the Mohawk language, per the same account.
Before founding Spiderwoman Theater, Muriel Miguel and Thunderbird American Indian Dancers director Louis Mofsie formed a teenage performance troupe in Brooklyn during the 1950s called the Little Eagles, aimed at preserving multi-tribal songs and dances, according to the Museum of the City of New York. Mofsie will serve as MC for Saturday's block party. His organization, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, was officially incorporated in 1963 and has hosted New York City's longest-running continuous monthly powwow since November of that year, according to Young Audiences New Jersey & Eastern Pennsylvania, which notes the group uses performance proceeds to fund higher education scholarships for Native students.
Performers Traveling From Across the Region
Saturday's lineup includes the Connecticut-based drum group Wicozani, the Tonepahhote Dancers, and the SilverCloud Singers, additions announced alongside previously confirmed performers, per BroadwayWorld. The block party will also include a live stoop performance excerpt of Tipi Tales from the Stoop, a solo play written and performed by Murielle Borst-Tarrant, Muriel Miguel's daughter, that explores four generations of Indigenous family life in Brooklyn, according to the Perelman Performing Arts Center.
For Tarrant and Muriel Miguel, the day is also meant to engage young Native Americans with their culture and traditions, Gothamist reports. Tarrant has said pretty much all of her family will be in town for the event, calling it a family reunion for attendees and relatives traveling from afar. The timing carries extra weight this year: Gloria Miguel, one of the three founding sisters, will turn 100 years old in 2026, according to the outlet's report. Tarrant has described the gathering as intended to be a space to let loose and be in community.
A 50th Anniversary Season Ahead
Saturday's block party opens a year-long 50th anniversary celebration for Spiderwoman Theater, which is named after the Hopi creation deity Spider Woman. The company, co-founded by Gloria Miguel, Muriel Miguel, and Lisa Mayo, is widely recognized for pioneering storyweaving, a performance technique that layers personal memories, traditional stories, physical movement, text, and visual art, according to La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. La MaMa will host a gala for the company this fall, per Gothamist, and the venue is also set to present a two-week Global Indigenous Theatre Festival running from October 30 to November 7 as part of the anniversary season, according to its own listings.
Spiderwoman Theater emerged in 1976 out of the era's feminist movement, after Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo experienced sexism within radical political movements and sought to challenge gender roles, racism, and economic oppression through performance, according to Westbeth. Half a century later, that history returns to a Brooklyn block just blocks from where the company's founders once grew up surrounded by a wider urban Indigenous community.
