![Rosy Simas artist/choreographer danced with a group of dancers during a rehearsal of her new piece "Skin(s)" which is about the invisibility she has experienced as a Native woman at the Intermedia Arts Sunday October 16, 2016 in Minneapolis, MN. ] Jerry Holt / jerry. Holt@Startribune.com](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/FBO4DR6742VX3SQIEQORW7T2DQ.jpg?&w=1080)
Above: Minneapolis artist Rosy Simas wrote an open letter after spotting the show's promotional photos on social media. (Photo by Jerry Holt, Star Tribune)
It all began on Twitter.
Local choreographer Rosy Simas saw a tweet congratulating New York's American Realness Festival curator Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor for booking a great line-up. She was considering a trip east and hoped to attend the event, which opened Thursday and runs through January 12.
Simas was then stunned to see a promotional photo of Moroccan-French performer Latifa Laâbissi naked and wearing a traditional Native American headdress.
Laâbissi's show, "Self Portrait Camouflage," is scheduled for Sunday at MoMA PS 1, a venue affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art. At the time Simas viewed the image, it was part of the ongoing partnership between American Realness and the Brooklyn-based performance space.
Simas, who is Seneca with ties to the Allegany and Cattaraugus Reservations in New York state, is a Minnesota-based artist and activist who speaks out when Native American culture, traditions, stories and objects are misrepresented by non-Native people and appropriated for uses unrelated to their intent. She was surprised that American Realness chose this particular piece.
So Simas wrote an open letter to American Realness, MoMA PS 1 and Laâbissi. She called for a public apology, cancellation of the performance and a commitment to present more Native American artists. "I see a non-Native woman in a fake headdress performing naked. I see a mockery of who Native women are. And I see a stage reserved for whiteness excusing itself from responsibility because it is an international person of color performing this mockery," she wrote.
This is not a new conversation, nationally or locally. In 2014, for example, playwright Rhiana Yazzie led a protest against the musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" for its sanitization of Jackson's legacy when it was performed at the New Century Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. Simas' Facebook page became the site of renewed dialogue following her letter. She promised protest if the performance went on as planned.