Click here for photos from Anasazi
 

THE STORY

Anasazi tells the tale of “The Pahaana of the Prophecy.”  By Hopi legend, a white person (“Pahaana”) will bring a missing piece of the prophetic “Anasazi Stone” to Black Mesa, unleashing fateful events.

ACT ONE

A golden dawn breaks over the Black Mesa.  Becca Palmer, a New York banker, arrives at the mesa to arrange backing for Canyon Homes, an upscale housing project with homes carved into cliff walls on the edge of the mesa.  This requires approval of the Hopi tribal council, which is deadlocked.  Canyon Homes’ developer is Kòokya, who claims to be a descendant of the Anasazi tribe, and who secured a small Anasazi Reservation (on which she has built a casino) when her DNA matched that of an old skull found in a dig.  Becca is wearing a pendant, a small etched stone covered with gold and jewels.  She meets and is attracted to Qalèe, a Hopi songwriter and performer.  Lolma, who also has her eye on Qalèe, is suspicious of Becca.

Qalèe and Lolma put on a culture show at Kòokya’s casino.  When he sings a song critical of casinos, she fires him—not realizing he’s just been named to the tribal council and will cast the decisive vote.  Becca and Qalèe become increasingly interested in each other, much to Lolma’s distress.  Noticing this romantic interest, Kòokya leans on Becca to “entertain” Qalèe in the desert—and then get him to sign a letter casting his vote for Canyon Homes.  In case that won’t work, she orders her two brokers, Prescott and Winslow, to steal the Anasazi Stone, as leverage.  They do so, and hide it in Narrows Canyon.

That night, in a romantic moment on the desert floor, Qalèe notices Becca’s pendant and wonders if it’s the missing piece of the Anasazi Stone.  She refuses to scrape off the jewels, so he can’t find out.  When she falls asleep, he sees spirits, signs the letter, and takes the pendant.  As he does, the sky turns pink, and the dawn breaks red—an ominous sign that the Creator is watching—and putting someone, perhaps Qalèe, to a fateful test.  Act One closes as spirit dancers swirl around the sleeping Becca, who awakens to find the letter signed and her pendant gone, as the old sandpainter Pa’a sings of the circle of time.  

ACT TWO

Act Two begins with the wedding of the young lovers Griffin, who recently quit the Canyon Homes tech crew, and Taawi, Lolma’s younger sister.  The Hopi learn that the Anasazi Stone has been stolen.  Qalèe arrives with the pendant and admits that he has signed away his vote.  As a plea for forgiveness, he starts a rain dance, causing a storm on a nearby mountain.  Taawi and Griffin leave for Narrows Canyon, to get some privacy.

Becca learns the full extent of Kòokya’s plans—to lay claim to all native lands ever occupied by the Anasazi and to build a city there.  She rips up the letter in Kòokya’s face, tells her bank not to fund Canyon Homes, and asks back-home associates to look into Kòokya’s past.  Qalèe reunites with Becca, returns the pendant, and tells her he thinks she could be the Pahaana of the Prophecy.  They go to the old sandpainter Pa’a for advice.  Pa’a tells Becca that if she is the Pahaana, the fate of the world will rest on the choices she and Qalèe make on this day.  Becca’s bank calls and fires her for blocking the Canyon Homes deal.  Becca learns that the skull in the Anasazi dig was that of a 700-year-old Thai emperor whose body had been stolen—so Kòokya is Thai, not Anasazi, and a clear fraud. 

In Narrows Canyon, Taawi and Griffin inadvertently find the Anasazi Stone where Prescott and Winslow had hidden it.  Kòokya sees them, and overhears them plotting to stop her plans.  She decides to kill them while making it look like an accident.  She notices the storm on the nearby mountain and orders Prescott and Winslow to drown them when the first flow of water comes.  Lolma witnesses this while hiding behind a rock.  Kòokya drops her cell phone, which Lolma then uses to reach Becca and Qalèe, who rush off to Narrows Canyon.

While Qalèe and Becca wrestle with Kòokya and Winslow, a flash flood arrives (as a flood dragon).  Qalèe saves Griffin and Taawi.  Becca pulls Kòokya under—drowning her, and ending the threat against the Hopi lands.  Qalèe battles the flood dragon, trying to save Becca, but they both drown.  Lolma sings of her eternal love for Qalèe