Land acknowledgement

The Lyric Opera building is located on the ancestral homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires, an alliance which formed based on the shared language, similar culture, and common historical background of its three historical members: the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe nations. The Chicago region was a site of trade, travel, gathering, and healing for more than a dozen other Native tribes, including the Menominee, Michigamea, Miami, Kickapoo, Peoria, Sac and Fox, and Ho-Chunk nations.

As the current inhabitants on these lands, we believe in the power of recognizing place and our relationship to the land and its community of caretakers, past and present. We acknowledge all Native peoples who came before us and who continue to contribute to our City. We honor the more than 65,000 current tribal members living in the area and pledge to make ongoing efforts in recognition of their knowledge, creativity, and stewardship.

We also acknowledge that, on this land, Indigenous peoples experienced a systemic and painful history of genocide, forced removal, and relocation that still impacts many Indigenous/Native American families today. We celebrate the resilience, strength, and endurance of Indigenous people demonstrated around the world.

As a Chicago institution, it is Lyric Opera of Chicago's responsibility to acknowledge this historical context and begin to build reciprocal relationships with the tribal nations on whose lands we are situated.

Influences

En pointe in Chicago: Maria Tallchief's Lyric legacy

Maria Tallchief (1925-2013) is often described as America's first true prima ballerina. A member of the Osage Nation, Maria Tallchief was not only a trailblazer for Native American dancers, but is widely considered one of the country’s most influential ballerinas of all time.

Maria Tallchief was a prominent Osage figure who overcame the barriers of racism against Native Americans. Pressured to change her name to fit worldwide ballet standards, Maria resisted and proudly performed under “Tallchief”. The Osage Tribal Council gave Maria Tallchief a name selected by her grandmother, “Wa-Xthe-Thoṉba,” which translates to “Two Standards.” It reflects Tallchief’s life in two worlds – as an accomplished dance professional, and as a member of the Osage Nation, two identities that she proudly represented throughout her life. Maria’s successful career intertwined with her relentless pride in her Osage heritage helped break down stereotypes that many Americans had against Indigenous communities.

During Lyric's first decade of existence, Maria Tallchief was seen at Lyric as prima ballerina in two company premieres: Ponchielli's La Gioconda (1957) and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1962). In 1971, she was appointed ballet director at Lyric, a position she held for two decades. In 1974 she founded Chicago City Ballet, which became the resident ballet company for Lyric, and an important independent dance organization for much of the 1980s.

For her enduring impact on American ballet, Maria Tallchief was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996, received the National Medal for the Arts in 1999, and was posthumously inducted into the National Native American Hall of Fame in 2018. She is one of two dozen women of a range of ethnicities who were selected to be a part of a program by the U.S. Mint called American Women Quarters Program.

Read more
The history of Chicago is intertwined with histories of Native peoples. The name Chicago is adopted from the Algonquin language.

This historical relationship is not innocuous. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced the migration of the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe to drastically smaller lands west of the Mississippi River. Chicago was also the destination, more than a century later, for coerced relocation of Native peoples under the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, which resulted in widespread disenfranchisement, poverty, and isolation for the Native people relocated to Chicago and other urban centers. The history of the lands that Lyric Opera occupies, and the history of Native Americans in Chicago and Illinois, is a history of displacement, conquest, and dehumanization.

Public policy has been used to justify genocide, leading to the destruction of Indigenous communities, erosion of Tribal Nation sovereignty, and the forced assimilation of Native individuals into U.S. society. Indigenous/Native families are still dealing with the impact of these policies today.
To support Indigenous communities nationally, you can also check out the following resources:
Additionally, to determine whose land upon which you currently reside, we encourage you to visit www.native-land.ca.