Friday 18th and Saturday 19th of September, forty bisons of natural size will cross the streets of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, manned by over 150 volunteers. The public can walk along the herd and stop along the way to attend concerts, readings and dance shows. Participation is free and no tickets are needed.
The event is called Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi and is presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Walk Productions and KBH Arts. He created the director Amir Nizar Zuabi in collaboration with the elders of the Lenape and Lakota communities, starting from the history of the American bison: an animal brought close to extinction in the nineteenth century and then saved through conservation and repopulation programs.
The puppets were designed by the South African collective Ukwanda Puppets; the direction of the work of the animators is entrusted to Craig Leo. During the two walks will reproduce the behaviors of a herd, alternating the path to stops in which they will seem grazing and at times of running. The exhibition will take place in the squares and parks crossed by animals.
Zuabi is also the artistic director of The Walk, the project of Little Amal, the great puppet representing a refugee Syrian child of ten years. About three and a half meters high, Amal travels between cities and countries participating in meetings organized with local artists and associations. The new show also uses the movement of puppets in public space to involve the people they meet along the way.
The English word buffalo indicates here the American bison, a species other than African and Asian buffalo. Since 2016 he is the national mammal of the United States. As the U.S. Department of the Interior reconstructed, at the end of the nineteenth century only a few hundred remained: the hunting and the reduction of the habitat, during the expansion of the settlers to the west, had decimated the herds.
For many native populations the bison provided meat, leather for clothes and shelters, material for tools, and had a role in spiritual practices. Its preservation involved tribal, private communities and public institutions. New York also contributed: in 1905 the American Bison Society launched a breeding program in the zoo today known as the Bronx Zoo. In 1913, fourteen bisons were donated to Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, to re-establish a herd.
The two days will be attended, among others, Laurie Anderson, Rhiannon Giddens, singer Davóne Tines, actors Sam Waterston and Chaske Spencer. Native Pride Dancers, Pilobolus dance company, Resistance Revival Chorus and Fogo Azul percussion group are also featured.
On Friday the parade will depart at 5 pm from Bowling Green Park, Lower Manhattan, with a welcome from the elderly Lenape. The route will touch Federal Hall and Zuccotti Park and end at Foley Square around 19.30.
Saturday the departure will be at 14 from Abolitionist Place, in Brooklyn. The herd will pass from Borough Hall and the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where a reading of Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is planned. The arrival will be at the Harvard View Lawn in Brooklyn Bridge Park, with a conclusion around 4.30 pm. Map and program updates are available on the event page.
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