Tatanka:
Two Dreams I had
when I was a Bison

Two Dreams I Had When I Was a Bison tries to imagine the subconscious of an ancient, massive, wild being which seems to breathe, think, and dream on time scales beyond our own: Tatanka (Lakota for the American bison) have been roaming North American earth for hundreds of thousands of years, cultivating their environment and living in tune with the ecological rhythms of the land.

The first movement/dream is liminal and atmospheric, evoking a bison breathing in the dewy pre-dawn air of the plains. Naturalistic sounds from organic extended techniques bristle around distant, floating melodies as the music morphs between different scenes like shifting dreams.

The second dream is a fiery, rhythmic stampede flickering in and out of existence. Unstable, yearning melodies singing over an earthy 7/8 ostinato are suddenly interrupted by fleeting, icier dream worlds. These two scenes repeatedly clash and eventually collide in a crackling, glacial chord, which dissolves back into the first movement’s atmosphere- now altered by more mysterious harmonies- and ending in a quiet, luminous light before waking.

The piece is inspired in part by my experiences driving West to East across the US this summer, encountering bison and learning more about their history and relationship to Plains Indian cultures through conversations with Lakota musicians and through the deeply important US national parks. The piece seeks to honor the bison’s wild majesty, mourn and highlight their near-eradication in the 19th century in a deliberate colonial effort to destroy Native ways of life, and celebrate their ongoing restoration to ancestral lands.