1996 and 1997 – Tukuhnikivatz (film) – created for projection  on the 60′ x 60′ Band Shell as part of the evening-length multimedia production Utah * Spirit Place * Spirit Planet * Tukuhnikivatz at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors GREAT DANCE in the BANDSHELL. Dancers were filmed on location at Muley Point and Butler Wash, Canyonlands, Arches, Utah and other locations in the Four Corners Area of the Southwest, USA; earth slides by Photographer Bruce Hucko. Tukuhnikivatz has been edited and shortened for submission to film festivals under the names TUK I and TUK II.and TUK (Tukuhnikivatz). The three film versions include: Original Documentary 01:03:45; Jamille Wallick edit,   00:39:58; Ludovic Jolivet edit, 18:04.

CREDITS:  Tukuhnikivatz – Film Installation:
Concept / Director / Choreographer: Maida Withers
Video by James Byrne and Verabel Call Cluff
Music Director: Brent Michael Davids, Mohican Nation
Earth Photographs: Bruce Hucko
Kinetic Light Sculptor: Adam Peiperl
Camera: James Byrne and Verabel Call Cluff
Editor: Stefani Altomare-Sese (original version, 1:03:45); Ludovic Jolivet (00:18:04; Jamille Wallick (00:39:58)
Production of Maida Withers Dance Construction Company
Dancers: Will Moreau Goins, Timothy Harling, Cristy Lamb, Emily Ojala, Maida Withers
Musicians: Brent Michael Davids, Mohican Nation, Crystal Quartz Flute; Melissa Angel, Double Bass; Will Moreau Goins, Vocalist; Dasha Hlavenka, Violin; Joe Myers, Classical and Acoustic Guitars.

Sponsors:  Sunny and Hardy Redd, LaSal Ranch, GW TV, KUED TV, At the Canyon’s Edge, Canyonlands Field Institute, Forest Service, US Department of Interior.

Premiere: Visual installation, Lincoln Center Great Dance in the Bandshell, NYC, NY 1996
Adaptation as independent film, 2011.

Tukuhnikivatz (Ute: Tukuhni-kivatz) is a name given by the Ute Nation to a perfectly triangular mountain in southeastern Utah, a future gathering place of the ancients at end time. Of particular influence is the Great Gallery rock art panel and others in the vicinity generally called the “Barrier Canyon Style” and are attributed to the Desert Archaic culture who lived in Utah from 8000 BC through 500 AD.  We honor and recognize the importance of these lands to Anasazi (ancestral Puebloan), Navajo Naion, Zuni, Hopi, and Ute and the Great Gallery, Barrier Canyon Style of the Desert Archaic culture.

Supported, in part, by Sunny and Hardy Redd, GW Television, Joe Pachak, Bruce Hucko, Tony Anderson, Craig Law, Cristy Powell, Becky Knoff, Maida and Arlen Withers, DCCo Board of Directors, Nancy Tartt, Paul Caffrey, Yordanos Baharu, KUED Television, At the Canyon’s Edge, Canyonlands Field Institute, NASA, USDA forest Service, US Department of Interior,

Adam Peiperl’s Kaleidoscope images by permission of Prime Lens Productions Inc. from the video of Barbara Mitchell’sSpectrasphere

Maida Withers
Copyright (c) 1996
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

                   Bruce Hucko, Earth Photographer, Collaborator, Moab, Utah