Performance by Tweesna Rose Mills, FMS graduate student, portrays Indigenous history

Tweesna Rose Mills, from the Shoshone-Yakama-Umatilla Nations, spent weeks preparing for her performance at the Spencer Museum of Art. 

On Thursday, she singlehandedly put on “Footsteps of Our Ancestors,” an hourlong show honoring Indigenous culture, history and lineage.

Mills is a fourth-year graduate student in the KU Film and Media Studies department and the co-chair of the First Nations Student Association. She’s put on at least seven performances over the past few years, and she’s a driving force behind the increase in Indigenous representation through art on KU’s campus. 

“I just wanted our stories to be told by us. Not for us, or about us. By us,” Mills said.