By Vanessa Hudson
Wearing a dark red shirt, Joshua Dixon sits in a tall grass field, singing a traditional Diné song. The song ends, and Dixon, a member of Utah’s Navajo Nation, looks to the camera and explains the deep connection many Native people have to the land. When they came into this world, he said, they understood they were part of the system.
“That’s what they mean by ‘Tó éí ííńá át’é,’” he said in the opening scene of a new documentary. “Water is our life.”
“The Illusion of Abundance” premieres Tuesday at Westminster University with the Great Salt Lake Institute. A Brolly Arts film, the documentary short combines the art forms of dance, music and poetry to bring attention to Great Salt Lake and its rapid demise.
Amy McDonald, director and founder of Brolly Arts, said the film was inspired by a narrative piece by Utah artist Sophia Cutubrus in 2022. Her written piece explores the plight of Great Salt Lake through its history as the “West’s Coney Island,” the tributaries that flow into it and the science behind the drying lake.
The film originally opened with a group of modern dancers on the shores of the drying lake, McDonald said, but after seeing an early cut, she knew they needed to rethink the approach.
“We realized to complete the picture, … we really have to include the Indigenous voice to go along with this narrative so that we get the holistic viewpoint,” she said.
Throughout the documentary, filmmakers weave in perspectives from members of Diné (Navajo), Tewa (Hopi), Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Nation, the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation and Northern Utes from the Uintah Band and Uncompahgre Band….
