For Zitkála-Šá is a series of twelve graphic scores dedicated to contemporary American Indian, First Nations, and Mestiza women working in music performance, composition, and sound art. The series as a whole is a dedication to the Yankton Dakota composer and musician Zitkála-Šá, (1876–1938) whose work also included writing poetry, fiction, and political essays, teaching, community organizing, and founding the National Council of the American Indian. Several of her works chronicled her early struggles with identity; as an orator, many of her speeches brought awareness to the systemic oppression of Native people. As a composer and musician, Zitkála-Šá taught violin, later writing the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera (1913), the first American Indian opera.
The scores function as both transcriptive portraits of the contemporary Indigenous women artists and how they navigate the twenty-first century. The scores draw on a range of symbols, including Western music notation, tribal geometries, and numerology, among more ambiguous designs.
Individual titles:
For Zitkála-Šá (For Laura Ortman), 2017
For Zitkála-Šá (For Barbara Croall), 2018
For Zitkála-Šá (For Suzanne Kite), 2018
For Zitkála-Šá (For Cheryl L’Hirondelle), 2018
For Zitkála-Šá (For Autumn Chacon), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Carmina Escobar), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Ange Loft), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Heidi Senungetuk), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Olivia Shortt), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Jacqueline Wilson), 2019
For Zitkála-Šá (For Joy Harjo), 2020
For Zitkála-Šá (For Candice Hopkins), 2020