Community Opening: Rosy Simas

This program will have ASL interpretation and live open captioning. Assistive Listening devices are available for checkout from the Main Lobby desk.

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Rosy Simas (Seneca Nation of Indians, Heron clan) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work weaves personal and collective identity with themes of family, sovereignty, equality, and healing. Simas’s knowledge of her Hodinöšyö:nih family and lineage is the underpinning of her relationship to culture and history—stored in her body and expressed through her work for both stage and gallery. Simas creates with a team of Native and BIPOC artists. Her work is driven by deep listening. Simas’s works for the stage include she who lives on the road to war, Weave, Skin(s), and We Wait in the Darkness. Her installations have been exhibited at the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center, All My Relations Arts, SOO Visual Arts, and the Weisman Art Museum. Simas is a Doris Duke Artist, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellow, Forge Project Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, McKnight Foundation Fellow, Dance/USA Fellow, United States Artists Fellow, First People’s Fund Performing Arts Fellow, and a Joyce Awardee. Her accolades also include a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation SHIFT award and multiple awards from the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, the MAP Fund, and the National Performance Network. Simas is a 2024–2026 Walker Art Center artist in residence.

Reuben Roqueñi is a nationally respected arts administrator with more than 20 years in progressive program development, management, artist-centric support systems, grant-making, and presenting experience. He is currently Executive Director at Portland Institute for Contemporary in Portland, Oregon, presenting some of the most innovative, risk-taking, and compelling artists from around the world. Previously, he was Director of Transformative Change Programs at Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, serving Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian artists, organizations, and programs across the US. Formerly, Roqueñi was Program Officer in the Performing Arts Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area, one the largest arts and culture funders in the US; and he served as Grants Program Director at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. Roqueñi is of mixed Yaqui, Mayo, and Mexican American ancestry, and his family is rooted in the Sonoran desert of southeast Arizona and northern Mexico.

Chef Lorinda John is a cultural creative and culinary historian whose work centers on food, culture, and community connection. Raised in a family where cooking was both tradition and expression, her relationship to food was shaped through shared meals, care, and storytelling. She holds a degree in Culinary Arts from Erie Community College in Williamsville, New York, and a bachelor’s degree from Buffalo State University. Johns’s work has expanded beyond the kitchen into cultural and educational spaces. She has contributed to World Central Kitchen’s Disaster Relief efforts and was selected as a Hometown Chef in collaboration with Delaware North at Highmark Stadium for Native American Heritage Month. Today, she partners with universities, cultural institutions, and community organizations to design immersive dining experiences and public programs that center storytelling, history, and intentional process, using food as a tool for connection, learning, and cultural continuity.

NATIFS works to revitalize Indigenous foodways, nourish communities, and honor the land. Guided by Chef Sean Sherman’s research and advocacy, the organization advances Indigenous food sovereignty through education, cultural reconnection, and economic empowerment. Its Minneapolis-based Indigenous Food Lab serves as a regional hub, featuring a professional kitchen, a classroom and demonstration studio, and a market offering products from Indigenous purveyors. More than a culinary initiative, NATIFS is a catalyst for community health and healing. By restoring knowledge disrupted by forced assimilation and expanding access to nutrient-rich, culturally relevant foods, NATIFS supports tribal communities in reclaiming their food heritage, strengthening local economies, and building a future rooted in wellness, pride, and sustainability.

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