Advice to Myself 2: Resistance

Directed by Heid E. Erdrich, written and performed by Louise Erdrich, filmed and edited by Elizabeth Day, music by Trevino Brings Plenty ( trevinobringsplenty.com).

Shot on the coldest and snowiest day of the year, "Advice to Myself 2: Resistance" presents a visual and verbal collaboration between author Louise Erdrich, her poet sister Heid E. Erdrich, and artist Elizabeth Day. A figure dressed as a bear moves through a frozen yet domestic landscape, at times using a blade to practice martial arts moves, at other times carrying a baby in a woven carrier. The She-bear’s movements juxtapose the voice of Louise Erdrich speaking a poem.

Throughout the "poemeo" as Louise calls the form, the bear gives us clues to her indigenous identity in her jingle dress moves, her beaded mukluks, the willow baby basket she carries. The words of the poem offer a message of personal, political and universal resistance. In the last moments the bear's identity is revealed.
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