Indigenous Fellowship
About the Fellowship
Each year, the Heller Center awards a fellowship to an artist or scholar who is doing work in Indigenous studies writ large. This fellowship aims to support work in Indigenous Studies by providing scholars an inspiring and distraction-free environment in which to work, funding, and the access to UCCS facilities and faculty. This fellowship also presents an opportunity for cross-pollination among the fellows and the UCCS faculty undertaking work in Indigenous studies. This initiative is meant to spotlight both UCCS’s Indigenous population and the history of the land upon which UCCS and the Heller Center sit.
2026 Heller Fellowship: Indigenous Practice and Heritage
Date: Thursday, October 22
Time: 6 pm
Sam Aros-Mitchell
Choreographer, Performer, Scholar, and Producer
Juya Nokakomea (The Talking Tree)
Sam Aros-Mitchell
Sam Aros-Mitchell is a Yaqui choreographer, performer, scholar, and cultural producer. Sam is a member of the Texas Band of Yaqui Indians. He was born in Imperial Valley, California, and spent an early portion of his life in the foster care system.
His work is shaped by the foster care system, adoption, and the borderland geographies of the Southwest. Much of his work asks what it means to be a Native adoptee, displaced from land and language but never disconnected from them. His body of work moves across dance, theatre, and visual art without much regard for the borders between them; in his approach, choreography, immersive installation, sound and light design, and embodied writing all belong to the same practice.
Fellowships & Honors
Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, 2025–28
McKnight Dance Fellow, 2023
Heller Center Fellow in Indigenous Heritage and Practice, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 2026
Artist-in-Residence, Indigenous Performing Arts Residency, UC Berkeley Arts Research Center, 2026
Artist-in-Residence, New Works Festival, Center for Performing Arts, Minneapolis, 2026