MUSEUM A stunning exhibition at NYC's George Gustav Heye Center illustrates the artistic diversity of indigenous people from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic
By Kara Briggs New York-The National Museum of the American Indian has opened a landmark exhibition of 700 objects-which span the Americas and more than 13,000 years-in its museum in Lower Manhattan. The exhibition is named "Infinity of Nations," an expression drawn from the letters of a Jesuit among the Ojibwe near the Great Lakes, who in exasperation wrote of the infinity of Indian nations that confounded his ideas of organization. So the exhibition by this name shows how Indian art ranges widely from nation to nation, from geography to geography, confounding simple definition, and standing the idea of the simplicity of pre-contact Native America on its head. "This exhibition represents a homecoming of the collection to the George Gustav Heye Center," said John Haworth, Cherokee, who is director of the George Gustav Heye Center in New York, a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian. In a review of the exhibition in the New York Times (Nov. 5, 2010), titled "Grace and Culture Intertwined," art critic Holland Cotter observed, "Boundless multiplicity is the rule." ... |
PEOPLE With influences ranging from jazz to powwow drum, the independent singer-songwriter prepares a new album for 2011 By Kara Briggs
New York-Recording artist Martha Redbone's Native American-infused soul is all her own. Redbone is an independent artist who is as likely to include a powwow drum as she is jazz riffs in her highly danceable music. Her second album, "Skintalk," is a sophisticated blend that is powered not by electronics but by a funk-rock band of veteran musicians. Released in 2005, she has toured behind it for five years-pausing only to have a son in 2008-bringing her songs to the indie-music scene in New York City and to festivals on reservations and across the U.S. "Because we released it independently, it gave people more chance to discover it," she said. "It is like a new album in each new community that we visited." In 2011, a new album, continuing in the danceable soul style of "Skintalk" and recorded with all live instruments, is planned for release...
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CULTURE By Kara Briggs
The year 2010 saw the Iroquois lacrosse team capture hearts around the world in its quest to travel on its Haudenosaunee passports, and ended with the U.S. and Canada uplifting hearts by endorsing the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would endorse the U.N. Declaration during the White House Tribal Nations Conference in mid-December, making the United States the last of four nations that voted against the declaration during the U.N. General Assembly in 2007 to eventually embrace the international law, which condemns the policies of colonialism and assimilation and asserts self-determination as the right of Indigenous peoples. "The aspirations it affirms-including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples-are ones we must always seek to fulfill," Obama told the leaders of 565 federally-recognized Indian tribes. "...But I want to be clear; What matters far more than words-what matters far more than any resolution or declaration-are actions to match those words."... |
PEOPLE One of the Twentieth Century's Most Significant American Indian Leaders American Indian News Service
Washington, D.C.-Dr. Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, longtime champion of American Indian civil rights, pioneer for Indian control of their own education, and passionate advocate for the sovereignty of her Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, died Sunday night, Dec. 19, 2010. She was 75 years old. In May of 2009, just weeks before the debilitating stroke that led to her death, Scheirbeck's 40 plus-year odyssey fighting for Indian Self-determination was recognized by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. By her side also receiving an honorary degree was anti-apartheid campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmund Tutu. Scheirbeck was a member of the first Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. She served as the Secretary to the Board for two terms and joined the staff at the museum, where she served from 2000-2007 as Senior Advisor for Museum Programs and Scholarly Research and earlier as the Assistant Director for Public Programs... |
MUSIC Miller picks iconic folk-rock hits of his youth American Indian News Service
Bill Miller is driving across Iowa, talking on his cell phone about the songs he loves, many of which he first heard on his car radio in the 1970s. Miller, who is Mohican from the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin, is a three-time Grammy winner and his work spans symphonies, traditional and popular music in a Native key. He has made his home in Nashville; a city that he notes is on the route of the Trail of Tears and was a hub in the civil-rights movement. To Miller it was a city of musicians who have helped him grow into a journeyman player, not so much a star as a master musician who remains rooted deeply in his heritage. Miller, 55, still spends the better part of the year on the road, as a painter and, of course, as a musician. The necessity of live concerts has grown as radio playlists have constricted, and Miller's music has expanded into prayerful and symphonic styles, and acoustic roots music. "Roots music is now where it is at," Miller said. "It's the marriage of history, belief and soul with the earth. It's a good, strong marriage even though sometime it could end because there is no strong union anymore between artists and the radio. The live performances mean the world to me. They are much more powerful, the guy who is real, the guy who sings the songs."... |
MUSIC Latest release makes Nakai a nine-time Grammy nominee American Indian News Service
R. Carlos Nakai's new album "Dancing into Silence," (with William Eaton and Will Clipman) features one hour of continuous music, making it a meditation from one of Native America's best loved musicians. "Dancing Into Silence" is a 2011 nominee for Best New Age Album making this Nakai's ninth Grammy nomination. Nakai, who is Diné and 64-years-old, released his first album, "Changes" on Canyon Records in 1983. His second album "Cycles" was used by American choreographer Martha Graham for her "Night Chant." He has released more than 35 albums, bringing the timeless traditions and tonalities of the Native American cedar flute in the 21st century. He has collaborated with seemingly everyone from composer Philip Glass to two-time Grammy-winning arranger/producer Billy Williams to Hawaiian slack-key guitar virtuoso Keola Beamer to Israeli cellist Udi Bar-David. Last summer during the Santa Fe Indian Market, Nakai premiered "À Bec Quintet" a classical composition for flute, the Native American flute, clarinet, bassoon and bass clarinet that Nakai commissioned from Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate... |
ART American Indian News Service
Washington, D.C.-The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian will open "R.C. Gorman: Early Prints and Drawings, 1966-1974," an exhibition of 28 drawings and lithographs by internationally renowned Navajo artist R.C. Gorman from Jan. 13, 2011 to May 1, 2011. The exhibition was originally shown at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York in 2006. It includes a rare self-portrait that shows smiling Gorman wearing sunglasses, a pink shirt and turquoise blue beaded necklaces, on fraying string, and some of the beads are falling. Kathleen Ash-Milby, Navajo, interprets this as foreshadowing the artist's emerging celebrity status and jet-set lifestyle. His art was admired and collected by several famous Americans, including Jackie Onassis, Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol. A four-color lithographic print titled "Yei-bi-chai" (1974) that the artist created for his solo exhibition, a first for a living Native artist, at the Museum of the American Indian-Heye Foundation in 1975. It was the first in a long series of popular poster prints, fulfilling Gorman's desire to make art that was both accessible and affordable, especially to the Navajo community... |
FOOD American Indian News Service
Washington, D.C.-Chocolate, chiles, tomatoes, blueberries and corn are just a few of the ingredients of Indigenous American cooking, showcased in "The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook" ($22.95) from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and Fulcrum Press . Author and executive chef Richard Hetzler shares recipes for 90 dishes with colorful photography and archival photographs of similar recipes being prepared by the Native peoples whose cooking inspires the popular Mitsitam Cafe at the museum in Washington, D.C. "Native food reconnects us to the land," Hetzler says. "Simple, abundant and-most of all-flavorful, it is life-giving and a way of life." From roasted venison and Peruvian ceviche to pork pibil tacos and quinoa salad, the new cookbook offers the cafe's modern perspective on foods that have been raised and harvested or hunted and gathered from the wild in North and South America for thousands of years. Mitsitam (mitt-SEE-tom) means "let's eat" in the Piscataway and Delaware languages. Hetzler has said that before the museum's opening in September 2004, there was a debate about what food the cafe should serve. At the time most of the restaurants in the Smithsonian Institution's 19 museums, galleries and National Zoological Park served hamburgers and hotdogs, he said. But this museum cafe would be an extension of the American Indian museum... |
ESSAY American Indian News Service
Washington, D.C.-The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is joining with the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation to launch the sixth-annual Young Native Writers Essay Contest, which invites Native American youth to speak out on issues affecting their tribal communities. The contest invites high school students from American Indian tribes in the United States to explore their heritage and use the power of their words to inspire change. For 2011, students are asked to describe a crucial challenge confronting their tribal community and how these challenges can be met and overcome. Previous essay topics have included homelessness, loss of language and cultural traditions, substance abuse and suicide among Native youth. "Indian Country has come a long way in recent years but has such a long way to go," said Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne), a former U.S. senator and current senior policy advisor with Holland & Knight. "The key to bringing an end to 60 and 70 percent unemployment, drug and alcohol addiction, high teen pregnancy and suicide rates is not through government programs. We must inspire the hearts and minds of our young people to be the change in Indian Country. I applaud the Young Native Writers Essay Contest for providing an avenue of inspiration for our young leaders."... |
FELLOWSHIP American Indian News Service Washington, D.C.-The National Museum of the American Indian's Indigenous Contemporary Arts Program offers support to a wide range of arts activities with the goal of increasing the knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of contemporary Native American arts. The museum considers the recognition of living artists of the Western Hemisphere and Hawai'i to be of primary importance and will give awards to projects that strengthen the scholarship in this underserved field and create opportunities for new and innovative work. Applications are being accepted until Jan. 14, 2011, for the Exhibitions and Publications and Expressive Arts programs... |
Go to www.americanindiannews.org to access full-lenght articles, high resolution photos, and Word documents with the full article. Add editor@americanindiannews.org to your address book to receive the HTML version of this news service. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is located in Washington, D.C., New York City and Suitland, Md. View online exhibitions at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu The American Indian News Service is edited by Kara Briggs, a Yakama and Snohomish journalist. She owns Red Hummingbird Media Corp., which is contracted by the National Museum of the American Indian to provide this service. Contact her at editor@americanindiannews.org or by phone at 503-577-0012. We're interested in how the American Indian News Service is used. We welcome copies of newspapers that contain news service material, or emailed links to online postings. Please forward to Red Hummingbird Media Corp., 8825 34th Ave. NE, Suite L-154, Tulalip, WA 98271; or e-mail to editor@americanindiannews.org. Kara Briggs, Editor National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center Cultural Resources Center To opt-out to this publication, please email editor@americanindiannews.org. Proud member of:
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