When Dudley Cocke was hitchhiking around the U.S. in 1969, he met Edward Wemytewa at a pick-up basketball game in Gallup, New Mexico. In 1984, Dudley was Roadside's director, and the company decided to visit Edward on the tail end of a Utah performance tour.
Edward invited Roadside to tell stories to the students in the Pueblo’s mid-school. The rest is history, as they say, as the ensuing 30-year exchange and collaboration produced:
- Numerous Roadside visits to Zuni and Zuni visits to Appalachia;
- The founding of Idiwanan An Chawe, the first Zuni language theater, and the creation of many Zuni language plays;
- The creation and touring of Corn Mountain/Pine Mountain: Following the Seasons, a Roadside--Idiwanan play;
- The publication of the book, Journeys Home: Revealing a Zuni--Appalachian Collaboration;
- Performances at the national Museum of the American Indian, New York City; the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Zuni Senior Center, Zuni, New Mexico; the Appalshop Theater, Whitesburg, Kentucky; Arizona State University; and the New Orleans Environmental Justice Festival.