the creek between us
August 2020
Tuckerman Park
the creek between us, Tuckerman Park, August 2020
Please enjoy the self-guided audio tour of the creek between us. We love your feedback, so please, let us know what you think!
the creek between us provided an opportunity to experience relationships with Bozeman Creek, while deepening understandings of what it means for our diverse communities to recreate outdoors. The project explored creative expressions of having fun, getting serious, negotiating survival, establishing reciprocal relationships with nature, and securing identity/ies in relation to water.
the creek between us was produced with residents from the region and local organizations including Earthtone Outside, Eagle Mount, and Queer Climbers Coalition. The project was realized by a collaborative team of artists, designers and scholars including Apsáalooke scholar and musician Shane Doyle, architect Ben Lloyd, opera director and media artist Laine Rettmer, media artist, writer and director, Mary Ellen Strom, costume designer Alayna Rasile, and art historian Rachel Tang (Diné).
By placing city parks and public outdoor spaces in historic contexts and examining their implicit and explicit biases and histories, the creek between us explored how different groups have experienced these spaces and will rethink and imagine new ways for the present and future.
the creek between us examined how ideas of “the environment” in Southwestern Montana have been constructed, disseminated, understood, and commodified over time.
This project raised questions including:
Have we created landscapes of exclusion, and, if yes, how can we change this narrative?
Who feels safe to enjoy our public recreational spaces? Who doesn’t?
Can we foreground narratives that are alternative ways of knowing recreational spaces and offer frameworks of experience outside the heteronormative, white experience?
How has meaning been attributed to the environment based on different perspectives including ideologies, beliefs, myths, and experiences?
the creek between us is a pilot project of an ongoing, multi-year effort to revitalize Bozeman Creek. the creek between us functions as a way to build relationships with our diverse communities to ensure that environmental efforts include cultural concerns. This project provides an opportunity to galvanize our diverse communities around Bozeman Creek, a significant body of running water that is in critical need of stewardship
Scene One
Performers: Liz Ann Kudrna, Laine Rettmer, Honora Carlson – Strom
Text: Liz Ann Kudrna
Music: Laine Rettmer
Set design: Ben Lloyd Music: Laine Rettmer
Choreography and staging: Mary Ellen Strom
Guitar: Laine Rettmer and Joseph Carlson-Strom
Scene Two
Performers: Aja Desmond, Honora Carlson – Strom, Rachel Tang
Spoken Text: Karin Boyd
Sign text: Shane Doyle
Costume Design: Alayna Rasile
Set Design: Ben Lloyd
Scene Three
Aerial performance and choreography: Michael O’Reilly
Climbers: Kyrie Bitterman and Jason Baide
Costumes: Alayna Rasile
Rigger: Jim Yocom
the creek between us was directed by Laine Rettmer and Mary Ellen Strom and created with Karin Boyd, Shane Doyle, Ben Lloyd, Michael O’Reilly, Alayna Rasile and Rachel Tang.
Mountain Time Arts is grateful for the generous support from:
The MAP Fund, Deana Albers, City of Bozeman Parks Division, Eagle Mount, Earthtone Outside, Gallatin Valley Land Trust, KGLT, Mountain Air Dance, Pearl Nixon, Barbara and Ben Phinney, Ed and Emily Wilbur, Montana Arts Council, Downtown Bozeman Partnership, Four Corners Foundation