As a child, Larisa Koenig experienced a vision of her grandfather being mortally injured during a totem raising that she credits with saving him from death. It is recognizing the supernatural realm through a Native lens that inspired her work as a writer and co-producer on an upcoming television show.<\/p>\n
“Even the Darkness” — currently an independent operation — has filmed five episodes, with enough material for a lot more episodes, and focuses on Indigenous culture in a way that will appeal to fans of the “X Files,” “Lost” and “Stranger Things” shows.<\/p>\n
The show is looking for a distributor.<\/p>\n
Koenig was born in Wrangell in May 1971 and lived here until she was 6 years old. She then moved to Haines, where she stayed until she graduated high school.<\/p>\n
“I spent a lot of time in Wrangell, though,” she explained. “I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandfather is Richard Stokes and my grandmother is Wilma Churchill. My parents are Gary and Rebecca Stokes.”<\/p>\n
She serves as an Indian Child Welfare Act expert witness as well as a consultant and advocate for Indigenous matters. She lives in Stanwood, Washington, north of Seattle.<\/p>\n
Koenig was initially contacted about her video project in 2020 after being referred to the show’s director\/producer by a friend.<\/p>\n
“They wanted me to review what they had, and to make sure that things were accurate and not culturally insensitive,” Koenig explained. “After a while, the original writer left, and things weren’t exactly clicking with the new writer they hired. So, that’s how I became the writer for the show.”<\/p>\n
Set in the Pacific Northwest, the show focuses on a fictional tribe with characters and experiences that are inspired by Koenig’s own life — some of which was experienced in Wrangell. In fact, some stories she heard from relatives while growing up have been woven into the story.<\/p>\n
Though five episodes have been created already, Koenig explained that the production doesn’t have a distributor yet.<\/p>\n
“There is the possibility of going with a big streaming service, but it’s very important that we maintain all the creative rights to the show,” she said. “This has been a completely independent project, so far. And some studios have a way of being culturally insensitive or casting Indigenous roles with non-Indigenous people. We want to avoid that.”<\/p>\n
Koenig explained that every Indigenous role in the show is cast with a Native.<\/p>\n
“We have been very fortunate to have such talented actors\/actresses with this,” she noted. “Some of them have no acting experience at all, but they do such a good job.”<\/p>\n
More than anything, she noted, the goal is for the audience to feel engaged with the Native community and its stories through the show.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t want to be attached to anything exploitative of Native American people and I think the local people of Wrangell will recognize the effort that was used to highlight this area of the world,” Koenig said.<\/p>\n
“And though it starts in Washington state, the story will eventually lead to Alaska. And I think that authenticity will be recognized, as well as our highlighting of the importance of the wisdom of the elders.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a child, Larisa Koenig experienced a vision of her grandfather being mortally injured during a totem raising that she credits with saving him from death. It is recognizing the supernatural realm through a Native lens that inspired her work as a writer and co-producer on an upcoming television show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":120540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1077],"tags":[186,74,73],"class_list":["post-120539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-top-news","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-ccw"],"yoast_head":"\n