https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKlR5x0f8EA&t=23s

https://vimeo.com/99726485 (Trailer)

TUK I (1:37)

TUK – FILM (1:37)  WEAK FORMATTING

TUK – FILM  (2:29) Trailer
Maida Withers and Verabel Call Cluff, with the assistance of Joe Pachak, Cow Canyon Trading Post, Bluff, Utah, drove us in his truck to select locations (sites) in the Southeastern part of the State for a six-week choreographic residency.  This also assisted in further research, 1989 – 1996, for creation of an evening-length work and film for a stage performance commissioned by Lincoln Center for Lincoln Center GREAT DANCE in the BANDSHELL, August 20, 1996.   Several small video projects were also created. This video short  was shot in Southern Utah in a location known for two mesas known as BEARS EARS. The rocks were on the roadside.  The camera could down the ridge for spectacular perspectives in this primal trio.  This video short shows a type primal work improvised on the land sites.

Dancers, Utah residency project: Tim Harling, Emily Ojala, Christy Lamb, Will Goins Moreau, Maida Withers.  Music:  Brent Michael Davids, composer, musician, and the Blue Butterly Group, Dasha Hlavenka, Joe Myers, Melissa Angel, and singer Will Goins Moreau.

Much of this footage was later used in the video art project TUK (Tukuhnikivatz) also distributed to dance film festivals.

TUK 1 Showings:
*Yosemite International Film Festival – recipient of the John Muir *Award for Outstanding Filmmaking  (2009)
*Wollumbin Film Festival, Wollumbin, Australia (2008)
*Get Reel in Moab Film Festival, Moab, Utah (2008)
*DC Independent Film Festival, Washington, DC (2008)

In December 2016, President Barack Obama designated BEARS EARS as a national monument.. President Trump has been redesignating government lands to allow mining, oil drilling, etc on large portions of these lands.  This is extremely contentious with local Native Tribal groups and environmental commissions.

Research:  Maida Withers, born and raised in Kanab (southern Utah) and Salem, central Utah, returned to the land of her birth in Utah several times over a seven-year period to study and remember the Earth and reengage with her more primal self. This period was important to her knowledge for the many Earth works that she conceived and danced. The project featured several research visits in the Four Corners Area (Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado). Verabel Cluff, was a significant companion for these adventures of research.  Joe Pachak was very instrumental in the selection of four locations for research and filming. Bruce Hucko was our photographer, artist-collaborator. Sunny and Hardy Redd with their generosity with their home, truck, food, ideas, made the project possible. These many residencies was brash and daring in many ways. Generally we lived out on the Earth without a tent or other protection. We rose with the Sun and laughed with the stars
.
Dancers feature Maida Withers, Will Goins Moreau, Emily Ojala, Cristy Lamb, Tim Harling.

Yosemite Award – Best Environment Film

Works for stage and film based on the southern Utah residencies are available on Maida Withers Dance Construction Company archive: maidadance.com/ as well as on Vimeo.

In Winds of Sand
Sands Cycles (Film)
Utah * Spirit Place * Spirit Planet * Tukuhnikivatz
TUK (Tukuhnikivatz) (Film)
Ledge (Moving Earth / Dunes; Mountain Birthing; Path / Migration)
Spirit Path / Migration / Remains
Still Rush
Earth Spirit Rising
She was a visitor
Rolling Thunder
Sky Cloud
Prologue – How the West Was Won (Cowboys and Indians Play)
others