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Rulan Tangen

  • Actress
  • Additional Crew
  • Director
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank
Returning home was the choice she made. Letting go was the choice she inspired.

Ancestor Eyes tells the story of a young Native American woman and her mother who both must come to terms with the young woman�s illness. Pain turns into a source of
Play trailer1:36
Ancestor Eyes (2008)
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Rulan Tangen is an internationally accomplished multi disciplinary artist and choreographer. She is the Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer of Dancing Earth, noted in Dance Magazine as "One of the Top 25 To Watch", and winner of awards from both National Theater project and National Dance Project for Production and Touring Grant. Rulan has been awarded the Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellowship for Servoce, Justice, Freedom, Courage , and Gratitude; as well as : 2016 A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art , 2016-17 Santa Fe Art Institute's Water themed artists residency, 2016 Catalyst Initiative from Center for Performance and Social Practice , 2015 Arts & Social Change Award from Arts and Healing network, Costo Medal for Education, Research and Service by UC Riverside's Chair of Native Affairs, the first Dance Fellowship for Artistic Innovation by the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation , New Mexico School for the Arts Community Leadership Award and was honored as a top ten finalist across all disciplines for Nathan Cummings Fellowship for Social Change .

Rulan's work values movement as an expression of multiple worldviews, including the honoring of matriarchal leadership, dance as functional ritual for transformation and healing, the process of decolonizing the body, and the animistic energetic connection with all forms of life on earth. She has recruited and nurtured successive generations of global Indigenous, BIPOC , and mixed identity contemporary dancers and holds the belief that "to dance is to live, to live is to dance". She believes in this form of dance as continuing the link of culture - from ancient to futuristic - and culminates in her vision for Dancing Earth

Rulan has taught extensively in diverse communities throughout the hemisphere, including youth and community projects under the . In Fall 2009, Rulan's choreography was appointed as Visiting Distinguished Scholar at Washington University. In 2010, she was invited by Stanford University's Institute of Diversity in the Arts to lead a semester project titled "Race And Environment."

Rulan's three decades of performance credits include ballet and modern dance companies in New York (Michael Mao Dance and Peridance), Vancouver (Karen Jamieson Dance), Santa Fe (Moving People, Dancing One Soul) and California (Marin Ballet and Redwood Empire Ballet), and appearances with the One Railroad Circus, as well as extensive yoga training, and powwow trail experiences as a Northern Plains Traditional Women's dancer. Her choreography has been commissioned by venues including the Heard Museum AZ, Society for Dance Historians conferences in Canada and USA, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics NY, Teatro Nunes in Brasil, Centro Cultural de Recoleto of Buenos Aires Argentino, in New Mexico for Santa Fe Art Institute, Native Roots and Rhythms Festival, Santa Fe Dance Festival, Native Cinema Showcase at the Center for Contemporary Arts, in California for the Idyllwild Arts Program, Festival, Aqua Caliente Cultural Museum CA; in Canada for the International Aboriginal Choreographers Workshop, McMichaels Gallery, Peterborough Art Gallery, Living Rituals World Indigenous Dance Festival, Toronto Harbourfront's Roots Remix, and Planet IndigenUs Festival; and including films Apocalypto (director Mel Gibson) and The New World (director Terrence Malick).
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    • Awards
      • 1 win total

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    Known for

    Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher in The New World (2005)
    The New World
    6.7
    • Two Moons
    • 2005
    Michael Greyeyes and Jessica Chastain in Woman Walks Ahead (2017)
    Woman Walks Ahead
    6.7
    • Susan McLaughlin
    • 2017
    María Isabel Díaz Lago, Antonio Monroi, Mayra Serbulo, Pepe Suárez, Gerardo Taracena, Raoul Max Trujillo, Jonathan Brewer, Hiram Soto, Morris Birdyellowhead, Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernández, Sayuri Gutierrez, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, Carlos Emilio Báez, Israel Ríos, Ariel Galvan, Iazua Larios, Amilcar Ramírez, Bernardo Ruiz, Espiridion Acosta Cache, Itandehui Gutierrez, Israel Contreras, Lorena Heranandez, Rodolfo Palacios, and Carlos Ramos in Apocalypto (2006)
    Apocalypto
    7.8
    • Additional Crew
    • 2006
    Kate Burton, Rosemary Harris, Harriet Thorpe, Kimberly Chesser, and Oscar Conlon-Morrey in Oscar Wilde About America (2024)
    Oscar Wilde About America
    4.2
    • Actress
    • 2024

    Credits

    Edit
    IMDbPro

    Actress



    • Kate Burton, Rosemary Harris, Harriet Thorpe, Kimberly Chesser, and Oscar Conlon-Morrey in Oscar Wilde About America (2024)
      Oscar Wilde About America
      4.2
      • 2024
    • Michael Greyeyes and Jessica Chastain in Woman Walks Ahead (2017)
      Woman Walks Ahead
      6.7
      • Susan McLaughlin
      • 2017
    • Drunktown's Finest (2014)
      Drunktown's Finest
      6.7
      • Sheila
      • 2014
    • Ancestor Eyes
      7.4
      Short
      • Willa
      • 2008
    • Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher in The New World (2005)
      The New World
      6.7
      • Two Moons
      • 2005

    Additional Crew



    • Groundworks (2022)
      Groundworks
      TV Movie
      • choreographer
      • 2022
    • Michael Greyeyes and Jessica Chastain in Woman Walks Ahead (2017)
      Woman Walks Ahead
      6.7
      • choreographer
      • 2017
    • Leaks
      Short
      • choreographer
      • 2014
    • María Isabel Díaz Lago, Antonio Monroi, Mayra Serbulo, Pepe Suárez, Gerardo Taracena, Raoul Max Trujillo, Jonathan Brewer, Hiram Soto, Morris Birdyellowhead, Rudy Youngblood, Dalia Hernández, Sayuri Gutierrez, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, Carlos Emilio Báez, Israel Ríos, Ariel Galvan, Iazua Larios, Amilcar Ramírez, Bernardo Ruiz, Espiridion Acosta Cache, Itandehui Gutierrez, Israel Contreras, Lorena Heranandez, Rodolfo Palacios, and Carlos Ramos in Apocalypto (2006)
      Apocalypto
      7.8
      • choreographer
      • 2006
    • Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher in The New World (2005)
      The New World
      6.7
      • assistant choreographer
      • 2005

    Director



    • How Turtle got the Cracks on His Back
      Short
      • Director
      • 2020

    Videos1

    Ancestor Eyes
    Trailer 1:36
    Ancestor Eyes

    Personal details

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    • Official site
      • Rulan is Artistic Director of DANCING EARTH
    • Born
      • Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
    • Publicity listings
      • 3 Magazine Cover Photos

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    • Quotes
      To live is to dance ; to dance is to live ..

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