Maria Tallchief was Elise Paschen’s mother and role model.
"I was a backstage baby," Paschen said. "I grew up watching my mother perform, and I would see her genius, her brilliance on stage, the magic of her performances. And then I would see her come off the stage and be sweating and exhausted and catching her breath and then getting back on stage," Paschen said.
Paschen is Maria Tallchief's only daughter and was born in Chicago, where her mother often performed. She's a poet and co-editor of anthologies like the New York Times bestselling Poetry Speaks to Children, Poetry Speaks and Poetry in Motion. At age eight, she discovered her passion for writing and poetry.
"I knew that whatever I decided to do with my life, I needed to do it with complete passion and dedication and focus," Paschen said.
This weekend, a quarter with Maria Tallchief's image and her Osage name etched below will be celebrated as part of the American Women's Quarter Program.
Maria's Osage name is Ki He Kah Stah Tsa, and in Osage orthography it's spelled 𐒼𐓣𐓸𐓟𐓤𐓘𐓸𐓮𐓰𐓘𐓸𐓲𐓘.
Sunday, October 29th will also be named Maria and Marjorie Tallchief Day. In 1953, the day was only dedicated to Maria Tallchief.
The Tallchief sisters are Russ Tallchief's great aunts. He was glad to see Maria's Osage name in Osage orthography on the coin.
"As a family member, having her Osage name on the quarter is not only an unprecedented act of tribal sovereignty, it is an honor, and it's a really special recognition of who she is as an Osage woman on the quarter," Tallchief said.
The Tulsa Historical Society & Museum will honor both Maria and her sister Marjorie as they unveil and rededicate the bronze statue of Marjorie Tallchief, which was stolen last year and destroyed. The statute is part of the Five Moons Sculpture Garden and features five famous Indigenous ballerinas: Marjorie and Maria Tallchief (Osage), Moscelyne Larkin (Eastern Shawnee/Peoria), Rosella Hightower (Choctaw), and Yvonne Chouteau (Shawnee). The park was dedicated in 2007.
There was outrage over the theft, says Tulsa Historical Society Interim Executive Director Cray Bauxmont-Flynn, who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation
“The pieces had been sold at a scrapyard for a few hundred dollars,” he said.
The culprits were later apprehended and some of the pieces recovered.
Maria, who passed away in 2013 was named America's first Prima Ballerina. She revolutionized dance after performing in George Balanchine's Firebird in 1949.
Marjorie, who died in 2021 at the age of 95, was the first Native American to be named “première danseuse étoile” in the Paris Opera Ballet, the highest rank a dancer can achieve there. She performed for presidents and dignitaries.
Both sisters grew up in Fairfax. A small town in the Osage Nation, home to about 1,100. They were born in 1925 and 1926 — right in the middle of the Osage Reign of Terror depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon. Paschen said her mother rarely spoke about what happened.
"The one thing she would say to me is that my grandmother insisted that they move because of the violence," Paschen said.
The family eventually left Fairfax and the two young women grew up in Beverly Hills. A lot of Osage families moved out of Oklahoma during that period as they feared for their lives in one of the darkest periods of the tribal nation.
Paschen has written about Fairfax. She wrote one poem about the Tallchief Theater and another one about the murder of Anna Kyle Brown called Wi-gi-e, as told from the perspective of Molly Burkhart. Paschen said that David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon, used the poem as inspiration for his book. You can read it here, or when you visit the Killers of the Flower Moon exhibit in Fairfax in a renovated lobby of the theater.
Russ Tallchief, who had a small part as an extra in the movie during a dance scene, said his great aunties served as an inspiration for him as an artist himself.
"We didn't get to grow up with them here because they were always traveling the world and, you know, making history all over the world," Tallchief said.
Paschen said both sisters’ dedication to their craft and the form of dance cannot be understated.
"Until the time of my mother, ballet was really focused in Russia," Paschen said.
"And here she was an American, and not only that, but a Native American who just wowed audiences on the stage when she was in the New York City Ballet in 1948, when the ballet company just got off the ground."
Sunday's celebration will include a performance of the Wahzhazhe Ballet, and a book signing with Paschen.
All the statues were created by two local artists, Monte England and Gary Henson. England worked on two of the pieces before his death in 2005. Henson remade the bronze of Marjorie, incorporating the pieces that were recovered.
For more information, go to tulsahistory.org.
