Turtle Island Festival is coming to the Chenango County Fairgrounds on July 5. The Turtle Island performance is inspired but the creation story of the Haudenosaunee and was developed by Seneca Artist and historian G. Peter Jemison. The inflatable aerial sculpture was built by French company Plasticiens Volants. (Photo by Alex Hammer, Unicycle Productions)

NORWICH - Chenango County is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence also known as America250 in part by hosting “Turtle Island Festival” The performance happening on July 5, showcases the creation story of the Haudenosaunee through music, dance, and inflatable puppetry.

After having a conversation with the show's creator, Seneca artist and historian G. Peter Jemison and the production company bringing the show across the country and globe, Unicycle Productions, earlier this year, this is what the show is all about.

The International Collaboration

Before getting into the details of the show, it's important to note that it only became possible thanks to various levels of international collaboration. A major part of the performance, the aerial turtle sculpture, was constructed by French company, Plasticiens Volants, based on designs by Jemison. While the dancing and narration is performed by the Skywoman Iroquois Dance Theater, choreographed by William Crouse a member of the Seneca Nation.

Jemison emphasized the collaborative nature of the presentation saying, “We have a group of French performers and street performers, and they have a long history of working with inflatables. Here in the U.S., we don't see inflatables except maybe in the Macy's Day Parade, but all around the world, that's a big art form. And of course, over there, they don't see our traditional dancers or our contemporary social dancing. And so now we're kind of collaborating in a way that is unique, and I think that that's important.”


“Through the performance, the turtle is being operated by Plasticiens Volant, so artists from France are going to travel to do this together with the Seneca dancers, so it's a collaboration live in that sense, as well during the performance, the audiences are all brought in,” said Sonia Koslova Clark, producer of the tour and founder of Unicycle Productions.

The performance premiered last year at Ganondagan State Historic Site before going on tour. Friends of Ganondagan, a non profit organization whose mission is to honor and promote Haudenosaunee history and culture and to strengthen traditions, is helping co-produce the tour. The project has also received funding from the Département du Tarn, Région Occitanie (France), Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education in the United States, and Institut Français Thomas Donahower. It's now being brought to the Chenango County Fairgrounds by the Chenango County Historical Society (CCHS) as one stop in the 2026 tour.

A collaboration between French institutions and the Haudenosaunee holds historical significance. To put it simply, the French are credited with naming them Iroquois, which many in the U.S. know them as.

“The French label us as the Iroquois. There are six nations that were brought together under the message of peace, to live together in peace,” said Jemison.

He explained that the six nations are the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk, the Tuscarora joined later. “We call ourselves the Haudenosaunee,” said Jemison.

The art of storytelling

Jemison's art has been shown across the U.S. and the world, in collections at the MoMA, the Whitney Museum, the British Museum and the Denver Art Museum. He has used mixed media throughout his career, even creating an animated film with animators from the Rochester Institute of Technology, that depicts the same story as the performance coming to Chenango County. The film also premiered at Ganondaggan Historic Site several years ago.

“We have a creation story, a story of how the world came to be as you and I experience it. I find that story very inspirational, very informative, and it really is a story that can apply today as it applied when it was first delivered to us, at some indeterminate time in the past,” said Jemison.

To create the performance Jemison had to decide which parts of the story to include. It is an ancient story with sacred aspects to their culture. Certain sacred elements are left out for the public performance which helps them condense it to be a more dynamic and visually representative show. A major theme in the story is balance. He spoke about two prominent characters in the story known by left-handed twin and right-handed twin who in the legend create things we see in the world.

“The left-handed twin is destructive. The right-handed twin is the one making things in a positive way. And this brings us to the present, we have these forces that still exist today. The force for negative and the force for positive, and they're always in a kind of a struggle,” said Jemison.“This is what I find universal about the Haudenosaunee creation story, is that these things are still present. You and I deal with them, and and you and I have equal tendencies. We sometimes do the good things and sometimes can flip up and go the other way,” he added.

The story includes more than just these twins, there is the Sky Woman who falls from the sky world, the turtle whose back she is brought to, the muskrat who brings dirt to help build up the turtles back, the Skywoman's daughter who is the mother of the twins, the Turtle Man. There is a whole part of the story that takes place in another world, the sky world, that isn't told through this performance to save time.

“It's a very old story. It's a story that talks about two worlds, a world that is above us that we refer to as the sky world, and the world here on Earth that we inhabit. And this story begins with a woman,” said Jemison.

The Skywoman Dance Group will be using their social dances and songs to perform this ancient story to the public, while the inflatable sculpture by Plasticiens Volant is operated.

This inflatable turtle was designed by Jemison based off of a painting he created. Inflatables made by the company have been seen at multiple Olympic Games, and performed in over 75 countries. They have recently announced a project for 2027 that expands on turtle island, hoping to tell more of the story of Sky Woman. According to the announcement on their website, Plasticiens Volants' artistic intent for Sky Woman is to create works that question, awaken curiosity, and provoke reflection.

The site says they want the project to pay tribute to a people whose history has been marked by attempts at erasure and forced assimilation.

When Jemison was asked about the Turtle Island Festival being part of the County's America250 commemoration.

“Well, you know, it doesn't exactly align in the sense that this is about a time period long before that. But it is okay to me that they acknowledge that there were indigenous people, who were living here on this land, and we're still here,” he said.

The Office of State History and Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS) released a New York State 250th Commemoration Field Guide providing suggested commemorative themes, ideas, and information, to help local and regional level planners of 250 events across the state.

The very first theme suggested in the guide is “Indigenous History is New York's History.”

CCHS bringing this performance to Norwich seems to fall into that theme providing a unique cultural experience to those who choose to attend.