Cinnamon Kills First, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, is working with a Lakewood creative collective called Control Group Productions on a three-year collaborative project focusing on the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre. The work culminates in May 2024 with public performances of “Breathing Healing into the Banks of Sand Creek.”

On Nov. 29, 1864, roughly 700 U.S. Army troops attacked a non-combatant village of 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho along the Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado. About 230 men, women and children were killed in the unprovoked assault.

This week, “Breathing Healing” collaborators are hosting a series of public events to call attention to the project and to educate the community about Denver’s leading role in the massacre as well as the broader context of genocide and ongoing oppression today.

A public dialogue and potluck dessert will be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 5) at the Junkyard Social Club in Boulder and again from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 6) at the Globeville Center in Denver.

“Right now, we’re in the process of connecting with communities to get a sense of what the public knows about this history and their role in current realities,” said Kills First, an artist, activist, documentary filmmaker and author of the children’s book “Go Dance.” “We invite you to come breathe with us, to chat, share learnings and open the door for healing.”

Control Group Productions, led by Artistic Director Patrick Mueller, creates singular live immersive experiences that take audiences on wild rides into the unknown. (Last year, the company won a Denver Gazette True West Award for “The End” – a Denver metro bus tour of the developing climate apocalypse.)

Kills First describes “Breathing Healing into the Banks of Sand Creek” as “a social engagement and performance project that aims to initiate truth-telling, reckoning, healing and reconciliation regarding the ongoing colonization, invasion and occupation of Indigenous lands.”

The performance connects the 1864 massacre, she added, “to present-day experiences of oppression, erasure and injustice that Natives face every day as a result of 500 years of genocide, forced removal and systemic oppression.”

Ultimately, she said, “our goal is to create a ramp that invites White audience members into awareness and accountability, while offering pathways forward to support change.”

Editor’s note: For our 2023 fall arts preview, the Denver Gazette is profiling several emerging artists who are introducing new ideas, voices, skills and approaches that are changing the ways audiences are experiencing and engaging with the arts. Look for the second installment in our series on Sunday, Sept. 10.  

Meet the artist

• Name: Cinnamon Kills First

• Hometown: Lame Deer, Mont.

• Home now: Portland, Ore.

• Homelands include Colorado, ancestral Cheyenne territory

• Pronouns: She/They

• Your genre: “Primarily Indigenous beadwork, but in this context of the “Breathing Healing” project: Writing and artistic direction.”

• What is the origin of your last name? “I was born Cinnamon Spear. I had a relative whose name was Atayela Wicakte, which means ‘Kills First’ in Lakota. But his name was stolen, and he was renamed Harry Kingman. White forces try to erase this history, so I changed my last name to Kills First to honor the past and leave a legacy for the future.”

• What are you going for as an artist? “My goal as an Indigenous artist is to weave hard truths together with somatic literacy to impact the body of those in my audiences in order to make way for reckoning, healing, Indigenous liberation and land back.”

• How are you shaking things up as an artist? “My art lies at the intersection of creative writing and somatic (body-based) healing. I’ve always wanted to use writing as a tool for healing, so after earning my master of fine arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I began five years of one-on-one training with a master trauma therapist. Now I can be sure my writing not only tells a story but opens minds, impacts bodies, touches the heart and moves the spirit.”

• What is the change you would like to see in our artistic cultural ecology? “I believe art’s purpose is to reflect, comment on and influence societal change. I would love to see art shift from entertainment to avenues of social reckoning and justice.”

• Shout out one other local artist: “Collins Provost-Fields of Fort Collins, a fellow Lakota Indigenous beadworker who will be showing her work at International Indigenous Fashion Week during Paris Fashion Week at the end of September.”