Breathing Healing into the Banks of Sand Creek emerged out of a multi-year project of social engagement and artistic development addressing the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as history-into-present that defines both Indigenous and non-Indigenous existence in the state of Colorado today – a critical moment in the 500-year genocide, forced removal, and ongoing systemic oppression of Native Americans perpetrated by the federal government and American people.

The project began in 2021 with conversations between Cheyenne artist-activist Cinnamon Kills First and Control Group artistic director Patrick Mueller, exploring how they could align and combine their creative practices and social justice goals. In 2022 it expanded to include activist-historians Bill TallBull (Cheyenne, member of TallBull Memorial Council) and Laurie Rugenstein (Indigenous Allies and Right Relationship Boulder). 

In 2023 it expanded again, into public dialogues with Native and non-Native communities. In 2024 it manifested a series of artistic-educational-spiritual experiences, as an immersive expedition into the White history-into-present of the Sand Creek Massacre.

The expeditionary live performances from May 2-19, 2024 focused on the White history of the Sand Creek Massacre, embedded in sites across the Denver-Boulder area. Speaking primarily to non-Native audiences, this work offered embodied experiences of this history, the policies and mentalities that drove it, and the ways it continues to define our present situation as Coloradans. It offered healing for the trauma created by the massacre on the perpetrators and their descendants – not just their blood kin, but all of us whose lives and thriving are built on this pivotal moment in the genocide and removal of this area’s original inhabitants.

To balance the White-focused address of these performances, we also created a range of complementary Breathing Healing… programming, including: 

• public dialogues and healing practices with Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and mixed groups (April-October 2023).

• full-day bus trips for Indigenous participants to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Southeast Colorado (June 1-2, 2024).

•  a mobile exhibit installed in Control Group’s bus, intended for Native and non-Native audiences, that will pop up across Colorado and elsewhere, August 2024 - October 2025.

Throughout this process and across all of the work’s manifestations, we will advocate for internal healing and communal action focused on education, Land Back, and other Indigenous equity initiatives.