Volker Goetze: “Wall of Forgotten Natives” is about Native Americans in Minnesota who struggle with indigenous homelessness and historic trauma celebrating culture and Identify as a healing force. A community of elders, from several tribes, comes together to address addiction and displacement. Having nowhere else to go, they survive by living in a makeshift encampment next to a highway with few possessions and their future filled with uncertainty. The project tells their stories as a community VR Dance, Poetry and Music Performance celebrating culture and Identify as a healing force.
Volker Goetze is a composer and filmmaker. His time in Africa inspired him to direct a feature-documentary about the oral history, extending the work into a live-performance-documentary recounting the creation of the African harp. His trumpet-kora duo transcends geographic and musical boundaries resulting in a unique musical synthesis that fused the timeless tradition of the storyteller/griot with a modern perspective, which addresses themes of our ancient spiritual roots, and our hurried, dehumanized modern strife. This making him a specialist working and supporting oral cultures creating new narratives transmitting the culture into the 21st century.