Indigenous Peoples' Day

Hawk Henries is a member of the Chaubunagungamaug band of Nipmuc, a people indigenous to what is now Southern New England. He has been composing original music and making Eastern Woodlands flutes using hand tools for over 30 years. Hawk plays a variety of different flutes. He also enjoys sharing his experiences and perspectives about life in hopes of acknowledging and honoring the Sacredness in each person and all cultures. He creates a calming yet engaging and contemplative space while maintaining a note of humor. His music is a reflection of thinking that we each have the capacity to make a change in the world. Hawk has had the honor of presenting at venues such as The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Harvard Medical School Graduation, and in the U.K. with the London Mozart Players. He also enjoys educational settings from kindergarten to university and small venues where he can engage the audience in dialogue. As a seasoned flute maker, Hawk has flutes all over the world and in several museums.

Photo of Hawk Henries Courtesy of the Artist

Taíno Afroborikua and award-winning choreographer Mar Parrilla is the founding artistic director of Danza Orgánica (DO). She is a proud mother, an interdisciplinary movement artist, an educator, and a community organizer. After attaining a BA in Languages (Italian, French) from the Universidad de Puerto Rico, Mar crossed the ocean to Nueva York, where she completed a Master's degree in Dance Education at New York University. Now a Boston resident, Parrilla is a recipient of several awards from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Boston Foundation, and Barr foundation among others. She is the recipient of the Brother Thomas Fellowship Award from the Boston Foundation, and the Outstanding Community Arts Collaboration Award in Dance from the Arts/Learning Organization. Mar is also the founder of the acclaimed program Dance for Social Justice™, as well as the founding producer of the Boston-based annual festival: We Create!. Parrilla is also a luminary artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where she has been commissioned to create artistic work, and continues to work with in several capacities. In 2018, Mar Parrilla/ Danza Orgánica received a Creative Development Residency at Jacob's Pillow, where they also performed at the Inside/Out Festival. Currently, she is still in partnership with Jacob's Pillow through DO's signature program: Dance for Social Justice™. In addition, Mar and DO are working in close collaboration with members of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe, through a multiyear partnership between Danza Orgánica, the Aquinnah Cultural Center, and The Yard. She is also collaborating with Puerto Rico-based artists on an ongoing cultural exchange towards the continued development of Melaza: a project that explores the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States of North America. Most recently (2021), Danza Orgánica was awarded the Powering Cultural Futures Multiyear Partnership with the BARR foundation. Since 1998, Mar has also been an educator based in NYC and Boston. She has been a dance educator in public schools across both states, as well as higher ed institutions such as: Boston University, New York State University at Stony Brook, Wesleyan University, Roxbury Community College, and Emerson College. Her focus lies on Decolonizing Practices, which she embeds in her Dance for Social Justice™ curriculum. Mar's production history includes company concerts since 2007, as well as the acclaimed and award-winning annual festival: We Create! (est. 2014).

Mar Parrilla Photo Credit Ernesto Galán.

Elizabeth Solomon is an enrolled member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag. Ms. Solomon speaks frequently about local Indigenous issues and has a long-standing commitment to human rights, diversity, inclusion, and community building that she brings to both her paid and volunteer work. Ms. Solomon currently works as the Director of Administration in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and has over three decades of public health experience working in both university and community-based settings. She also serves on multiple advisory and management boards. Ms. Solomon holds a master’s degree in museum studies and she has a commitment to work with native communities and others that are currently underrepresented in museum exhibits and public history programs to assist them with bringing their voices and stories to the forefront.

Image Courtesy of the Artist.