The Chicago Flute Club’s 2021 flute festival will feature the UNO flute studio in a performance of James Barnes’ “Ghost Dancers: Threnody om Wounded Knee” which will be broadcast virtually on Friday, November 12, 2021. Directed by Dr. Christine Beard, the project was recorded in the April 2021 and also features percussion performed by UNO’s Dr. Hannah Weaver.

“Ghostdancers” is a reflective tone poem based on the tragic story of the Piaute Medicine Man named Wovoka and his development of the “Ghost Dance,” which many Plains Indians adopted in the late 19th Century in a desperate effort to call their ancestors back from the dead to help them repel the massive immigration of white settlers to the Great Plains, whose rapid influx disrupted the Plains Indians food sources. The tragic history of the “Ghost Dance” culminated during the Wounded Knee Massacre, which has become infamous as the last hostile act between Native Americans and the United States Government.

In addition to video footage of the flute ensemble, the UNO flute studio’s recording also contains actual photographs of the people and events that took place during this tragedy; the completed project can be viewed at https://youtu.be/__6kNwphJn4.