NEW YORK – From the Mohawk ironworkers who raised much of the skyline to
the thriving indigenous expatriates from Latin America, urban Indians have
left their mark on the Big Apple. But Natives from around the country are
coming here to break into a new field – the performing arts.

Following the inspiration of Maria Tallchief, the Osage prima ballerina who
put George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet on the map, young dancers have
come from Navajoland and the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota to
train and perform with New York troupes. And some actors and actresses,
with the help of the local community, are cracking the hardest nut of all:
national television drama.

The focus of much New York Native life is the American Indian Community
House in lower Manhattan. It provides medical and social programs; and, in
response to the influx of show biz hopefuls, it has established a kind of
central casting service, with some outstanding successes.

The AICH Performing Arts Department, run by Jim Cyrus, maintains a roster
of “performing and allied artists” that receives frequent calls from major
production companies. It produces an annual Native American Actors Showcase
in the fall that is attended by agents, casting directors and other theater
professionals. It even offers a performing arts stipend of up to $250. The
program gave a start to Irene Bedard, Sheila Tousey and Greg Zaragoza,
among others.

Every month the Community House Bulletin runs a section called “Bravo,”
compiled by Cyrus, that lists appearances by talent helped along by the
AICH. As updated by his assistant, Ronice Mullins, it’s an impressive list.

The Community House appears to have a special connection with one of the
strongest franchises on television, Dick Wolf’s “Law and Order” series. The
well-known Stockbridge-Munsee/Menominee actress Sheila Tousey has made at
least 10 appearances on “Law and Order,” nine as a judge on the “Special
Victims Unit” spin-off and one on the flagship “Criminal Intent.” (Tousey
was a member of the New York community when she did graduate work at New
York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.)

“Law and Order” turns regularly to the Community House for extras.

Its latest spin-off, “Trial by Jury,” used Tiana Sunshine Silva in a recent
episode. She has gone on to appearances in the Nicole Kidman film “The
Interpreter” and Will Smith’s “First Last Kiss.”

Candece Tarpley appeared with Tousey on “Special Victims Unit.” The series
has also hired Community House regulars Doskie Vinson, Darren Vinson,
Hadahsa Colon, Javier Colon, Taina Landron and Adina Bauman.

Steven Spielberg’s “Into the West” series, on the TNT cable channel, also
draws on Community House talent. Kalani Queypo plays White Bird and Chaske
Spencer is Voices that Carry.

The Community House also provided the Native extras for the infamous
“Columbus Day” episode of “The Sopranos,” which first aired in September
2002. HBO’s merry crew of mobsters defended their national hero against
Indian protesters, and lost. The activists, who were by and large
uncredited, included Irma-Estel LaGuerre as Doski, Sami Sargent and Chaske
Spencer.

That episode also introduced Mohawk beauty Alex Rice as Native lawyer
Maggie Dornan. She later turned in two award-winning performances as Janet
Pete in the television movies “Coyote Waits” and “A Thief in Time,” based
on the Tony Hillerman novels set on the Navajo reservations. Although she
was born on the Kahnawake Reserve in Canada and is now based in Los
Angeles, Rice spent much of her childhood in the Mohawk ironworkers’
community in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Although Rice is not on the current AICH roster, another rising star has
direct ties to the Community House. The very busy Rosario Dawson has played
the salvation of the universe (or at least her home planet) in “Men in
Black II” and Queen Roxanne of Macedonia, mother of Alexander the Great, in
Oliver Stone’s “Alexander.” She starred in the comic book-based “Sin City”
earlier this year, and has at least three more movies in production or
ready for release.

Dawson was born in New York in 1979 with a very contemporary ethnic mix of
black, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Irish and American Indian. Her grandmother,
noted Mullins of the AICH, “is a Community [House] member, Apache and
Seminole.”

The AICH supports people who write plays and screenplays as well. On the
second Sunday of each month through September, Dawn Jamieson, AICH’s first
vice chairman, will present a series of readings from scripts in
development. Earlier this spring she taught an acting class along with
Tyree Giroux. Both these activities used the performance space, the Circle,
on the eighth floor of the building now housing the AICH.

The future of this space is now in doubt, since according to the latest
Community Bulletin, the building’s owner plans to sell it for conversion to
residences. On top of its perennial financial pressures, the Community
House is now looking for a new location. Wherever it lands, however, it
will be taking a vigorous artistic life along with it.