La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

Directed by Ping Chong and Ryan Conarro, ALAXSXA | ALASKA features Conarro and Gary Upay’aq Beaver (Central Yup’ik), along with puppeteer Justin Perkins, using movement and puppetry to reveal a series of little-known historical narratives of collisions between people and cultures in Alaska. These histories--at times humorous, at times tragic--juxtapose against Beaver and Conarro’s own personal memories as "insider" and "outsider" in the Last Frontier. The title of the piece is the ancient Unangax tribal name for the rocky shores of the Alaska Peninsula: ALAXSXA (uh-LUK-shuh). This word is mirrored by and juxtaposed against the familiar, Anglicized version of this place name: ALASKA.