Howie Echo-Hawk of Indigenize Productions Reflects on Making Spaces for Queer Indigenous Freedom

by Amanda Ong

South Seattle Folks may have heard of Indigenize Productions, which organizes the Indigiqueer dance parties that pop up around Seattle month to month. It has hosted Seattle's only regular spaces intended for queer Indigenous folks, like last month's Seattle Aquarium After Dark: Pride Edition, or its Sweatlodge burlesque party. But most don't know that Indigenize productions has been a six-year endeavor helmed by Howie Echo-Hawk, a local performer, artist, and event organizer.

"To be a Native person trying to make things happen in this city for the past six years, I'm on the fringe of the fringe. I've had a lot of success, but it hasn't been easy," Echo-Hawk said in an interview with the South Seattle Emerald. "In the beginning, it was fucking terrifying, I was so scared that the Native community here would deny me, because it's scary to come out."

While Echo-Hawk has been known for their stand-up comedy, DJ sets, and more, their most public events have been their Indigiqueer dance parties — but Echo-Hawk says they are now looking forward to doing different things within the queer Indigenous space. Still, the dance parties have had an impact on them and have been their way of pushing the boundaries for the Seattle community. While their events have been curated with fun and entertainment in mind, Echo-Hawk started organizing them from a place of exhaustion with being pigeonholed as a Native person. While Indigenize Productions has been a space for dance parties, everything Echo-Hawk has done has been in pursuit of freedom for Native people to be seen doing more than traditional dance and song.

"I still don't ever get to fully experience that freedom. But I hope that anybody who comes can, for a moment, see what it might look like." Echo-Hawk said. "Selfishly, I can say that Indigenize exists, and continues to exist, because I need a place to be free. What I hope is when somebody sees me or Hailey Tayathy for the first time, as a Native trans person dressing like they want and acting like they want, [they can] experience the potential for freedom."

Tayathy, a Native drag performer, recently organized the second Indigiqueer Festival. Echo-Hawk was also involved in the inaugural Indigiqueer Festival last year. Echo-Hawk and others honored Tayathy at the last INDIGIQUEER Pride: Stay Savage Party on June 23 with a blanket for Tayathy's role in creating the Indigiqueer Festival.

And though their Indigiqueer dance party on June 23 was likely their last for some time, Echo-Hawk still has even bigger dreams and plans for Indigenize Productions. Echo-Hawk is full of ideas, from connecting Indigenous folks to larger, collaborative, queer BIPOC spaces; to taking their Indiqueer dance parties on the road to other parts of the Pacific Northwest; to hosting a festival to bring every Native headliner they can find, whether in comedy, acting, music, or drag, all to one place.

"I'm trying to push the boundaries and see what it might look like to do something a little bit different," Echo-Hawk said. "I'm trying to have [Indigiqueer] be more of a reflective space that people would come together around a specific intention, [whether] they would eat or say their peace or sing a song, or just do their own thing to add to the experience."

Echo-Hawk says that much of what they've learned and done, they've done because they needed to see more Indigenous folks doing it. They learned to DJ because an event needed another Native DJ, and now that they've honed their abilities in these arts, they hope to see how they can bring that into the rest of their artistic vision. There are many things Echo-Hawk has been able to do that they once found intimidating and terrifying. When they started out, they say it felt amazing just to get onstage wearing lipstick and a skirt and not be attacked. Now, they can feel confident enough to worry first about which is the hottest outfit they can wear on a given night.

Indigenize Productions has, in many ways, been an experiment in how far Echo-Hawk can push the city of Seattle. Testing the waters, Echo-Hawk set up a tiered ticketing system for events that asks white people to pay more (the self-selected "colonizer" option), and simply creating a space for many people to see trans, Indigenous folks dance burlesque for the first time has been a way for Echo-Hawk to ask Seattle to do more for queer Native people.

"There are a lot of stories in the Native community about disruptors, like Coyote and Raven," Echo-Hawk said. "I have a mentor who has told me many times that I'm a trickster, I can't help but push people's buttons. And Coyote is not always right. But Coyote's job is to disrupt and to take down monsters. I'm not saying that's what I am. But it is what I have grudgingly tried to do in the pursuit of freedom."

With the foundation they've built through Indigenize Productions' past dance parties, we can continue to expect Echo-Hawk and Indigenize to be present with new disruptions, new experiments, and new ways to imagine freedom. Keep an eye out for Echo-Hawk under their DJ name Theres More, as well as Indigenize Productions' future events on its Instagram page.

📸 Featured Image: Howie Echo-Hawk DJs at an Indigiqueer dance party. (Photo: Vee Chattie)