HILLSBORO, ORE (March 16, 2026) – Native Performing Arts Network announces the cast for its next production, the Pacific Northwest premiere of Antíkoni by Beth Piatote. The final show of Bag&Baggage’s 2025/2026 season, this co-production is a bold and urgent reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone, framed through a Native American perspective. Set within a museum filled with Indigenous belongings in a near-future world where Nationalists have seized power, a Nez Perce family is caught between the demands of modern survival and the sacred traditions they are determined to uphold. At the heart of the conflict is Kreon, a Native museum curator who complies with the new regime to protect his position, and his niece Antíkoni, who refuses to let go of her people’s truth—risking everything to honor what is sacred. This co-production between Native Performing Arts Network and Bag&Baggage is an investigation of resistance, ethical duty, and the enduring struggle to protect history, identity, and sovereignty.
PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) – A local performing arts group is stepping up as part of a movement to raise awareness for National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR). Hillsboro-based Native Performing Arts Network will present the play ‘ I is for Invisible ’ by Cherokee playwright and actress DeLanna Studi. The group is inviting theatres of all sizes, universities and other organizations to participate in the national day of action on May 5. Studi joined us on AM Extra, along with Jeanette Harrison, director and founder of the Native Performance Arts Network, to share the significance of this effort and to dive into the what the featured play is about.
Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act ( NAGPRA ) in 1990. The law acknowledged that human remains, and cultural items removed from federal or tribal land belong first to the descendants of the people who lived in those homelands and created those cultural and spiritual items. In other words, contemporary federally recognized tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations could — finally — bring ancestors home. Native people often consider all remains and cultural objects as ancestors, in recognition of unbroken and spiritual kinship ties. The law established guidelines and frameworks for identifying descendancy and mandated compliance from any public or private institution receiving federal funds.