One day several years ago, married couple Henry Cloud Andrade and Crystle Lightning found themselves watching the classic 1978 movie musical Grease. It sparked a conversation.
“We talked about how, for a rock and roll movie, it’s a very white movie,” says Andrade, a Wixárika writer and rapper. “We were like, what if there was a native Grease? What would that look like? We talked about the obvious reasons why that wouldn’t exist—the 50s were a lot different for indigenous peoples. We were dealing with boarding schools and residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.”
As they continued watching, the Grease tune “Summer Nights” came on, and the couple began riffing lyrics like “met a girl / she’s Enoch Cree / met a boy who’s not related to me.”
“We started cracking up,” says Andrade.
Since that day, those ad-lib lyrics have been sung many hundreds of times as part of the show they inspired: Bear Grease, a parody musical that infuses the story and songs of Grease with indigenous traditions and hip hop. The performance comes to Durham this April 2-3, as the Duke Arts Presents season closer.
At first, the all-indigenous cast included Andrade and Lightning themselves. “I’d never gotten to play a role like Sandy, as an indigenous woman,” says Lightning, an actor and director from the Enoch Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada. “Those roles were not available to us, so we had to create them for ourselves.”
But these days, the creators, known together as the hip hop group LightningCloud, take a backstage role in the show, which has toured extensively and recently ran off-Broadway. The INDY spoke to Lightning and Andrade about Bear Grease, the meaning behind the name, and the many references to indigenous culture they wove into the show.
You’ve been touring this show for over four years. What do you think makes it resonate so deeply?
HCA: What it represents is what makes it big: Natives being able to see themselves onstage, and our white friends and allies being able to see us as humans and watch us fall in love and goof around. We’ve also incorporated original music, hip hop, powwow—there’s all this language and culture that people would never see on a theater stage.
CL: I think it’s really needed because it’s funny, and a lot of native stories are based on our past, which is very traumatic. Although that’s important, and we acknowledge it, we decided that laughter is medicine, and we wanted to go the other way and create something fun and joyous.
Can you explain the significance of bear grease in indigenous culture?
HCA: Bear grease comes from the rendered fat of a bear. It’s a sacred medicine.
CL: You can heal anything from scrapes to your hair, your skin, your heart.
HCA: We took on the name Bear Grease as not just a play on Grease but to also mean that we come with this healing message. The audience will leave in laughter and in tears, feeling well-represented, having been able to leave their lives and whatever they’re going through for two and a half hours and disappear into our world.
When you’re touring Bear Grease, are you able to connect with local native communities?
CL: We make it a point to. We do community shows, which are the heart and soul of this, because that’s where we get to make an impact on the youth. We’ll offer a workshop or a Q&A. It’s so important for our youth to see this representation. We also have a couple of lines in the show that we tailor to the community.
HCA: Usually, Danny and his crew are from the local tribe. So everywhere we go, the whole crew learns the greeting, learns about the tribe, all those little things that really connect us. And usually Sandy comes from a tribe that’s nearby, that they have a healthy beef with.
CL: The crowd goes nuts when they hear their nation.
Can you share a few elements of indigenous culture that audiences will see in Bear Grease?
HCA: You’ll see traditional grass dance that we use in our powwow culture, you’ll see traditional fancy dance, you’ll see the famous Métis jigging. You’ll see our dress, our style, our braids, our beadwork. There’s a native humor that we use, which connects directly with natives but is also so funny that everybody will enjoy it. We incorporate ledger art, which is a beautiful traditional indigenous medium of making art on ledger paper. There’s our language—we have a song called “Wîcihin,” which is the Cree rendition of “Stand By Me.” That’s usually the one that leaves everyone in tears.
CL: We do “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” but it’s sung roundie style. In our culture, the roundie is our version of the blues. You’ll hear it at the 49, which is the after-party of powwows. Our ‘50s poodle skirts have ribbons and bears and beadwork on them. It’s not the T-Birds, it’s the Thunderbirds. The Pink Ladies are now the Pink Aunties. We just kind of indigenized the whole thing.
HCA: Even if we had none of that, we have an entire cast and crew of indigenous people being represented on that stage. Even if we did word-for-word Grease, it would still be spellbinding to see that representation. But it’s not just that.
To comment on this story, email [email protected].
You must be logged in to post a comment.