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- By Native News Online Staff
This weekend and next week in Indian Country, Native made holiday markets abound as Christmas approaches, an annual cultural dance celebrates the seasonal cycle, and films showcase the power of Native storytelling.
Here is Native News Online’s weekly round-up of arts, culture and entertainment offerings around Indian Country.
Wendy Red Star Reception
Friday, Dec. 09, 5–8 p.m.
Madison, Wisc.
Wendy Red Star: Apsáalooke: Children of the Large-Beaked Bird opened at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on Nov. 12. Wendy Red Star is a multimedia artist and a member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) tribe who creates art to offer a narrative of Native people in America that focuses on an indigenous perspective rather than the typical stories told by non-Native scholars. An avid researcher, Red Star uses historical imagery and material culture as direct references for her own photographs and installations.
At the center of Children of the Large-Beaked Bird are portraits taken during the 1873, 1880, and early 1900s Crow Delegations that brought Crow leaders to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. officials to negotiate territory and reservation boundaries. Red Star adds details and annotations to these images that highlight the leaders’ humanity and importance.
This free event will include a virtual introduction from Wendy Red Star and a performance by the Wisconsin Dells Singers. A cash bar will be available in the lobby and the museum’s third-floor lounge.
Native American Elderly Arts & Craft Holiday Market
Saturday, Dec. 10, 9 a.m. — Sunday, Dec. 11, 5 p.m.
Denver, CO
The Lakota Way Healing Center Presents the 11th annual Native American Christmas Market welcomes everyone to shop and learn about Native American art from the actual artists and craftspeople who create it.
Get hands-on “make-and-take” art stations and browse handmade traditional clothing, including shawls, star quilts, dresses, Seminole patchwork skirts, ribbon shirts, vests, silver and turquoise jewelry, one-of-a-kind bead-work, leather goods, handmade porcupine quill jewelry, Native American home goods and more.
Bring your holiday list and stock up on crocheted scarves, baby blankets, baby moccasins, stationary, hand-painted wooden keepsake boxes, Christmas stockings and ornaments. You’ll also find handmade leather goods, handmade Native American dolls, Blankets and wood etchings. Local Indigenous Elders will be selling Native American-made paintings, prints, calendars, tees, decals, mugs, and more.
Native American Youth Art Show
Saturday, Dec. 10, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Albuquerque, NM
This annual exhibition was established in 1979 to encourage creativity among Native youth and to help them recognize that the future preservation and evolution of Native culture lies with them. This year, entries focus on personal ‘superheroes’ – the place, people, or things that help them see the beauty in the world. Free for Indian Pueblo Cultural Center members or with museum admission.
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45th Annual Indian Market
Saturday, Dec. 10 and Sunday, Dec. 11, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m.
Phoenix, AZ
The Friends of Pueblo Grande Museum presents the 45th Annual Indian Market at Pueblo Grande Museum and Archeological Park. The Pueblo Grande Indian Market will take place on Saturday, Dec. 10 & Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022, from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Cost: $5 (entrance to the museum included) and the market is free to Indigenous peoples, military personnel (active and retired), Friends of Pueblo Grande Museum members, children twelve and below, and police and fire.
In addition to over 100 artisan booths, the market will feature traditional Native American performances, ancestral demonstrations, and Native foods. The entire museum and park are open to the public during this event with price of admission. The event is family-friendly, featuring the Ki:Him (O’odham word for village), where visitors can engage in many hands-on activities. Some of these activities are especially suited to children of all ages. These include learning how to use an authentic bow and arrow; an atlatl to throw spears; creating a clay pot; making a beaded bracelet; incising a petroglyph, making paper masks; painting miniature gourds; learning how to hoop dance, and so much more. Visitors will also be able to watch piki bread being made and taste it when it’s finished. They will also be able to taste cooked tepary beans and juices made from native fruits.
Native Made Holiday Marketplace
Saturday, Dec. 10 and Sunday, Dec. 11, 11 a.m.- 5 p.m.
Portland, OR
Visit the Native American Youth, and Family Center’s Winter Native Made Winter Marketplace each weekend through the month of December at the future site of the center’s retail shop, right in the heart of Portland’s Cully neighborhood. Support Native artists and find the perfect gift for everyone in your life. There will be live music, refreshments and food.
Pueblo Grande Indian Market 2022
Saturday, Dec. 10 and Sunday, Dec. 11
Phoenix, AZ
The Pueblo Grande Indian Market in Phoenix, Arizona, celebrates Native American culture and heritage. Situated at the Pueblo Grande Museum Archaeological park, the two-day event features over 100 arts and crafts booths, traditional foods and performances by Native American musicians and dancers. A kid’s area boasts activities like drum circles, hoop dances, pottery, and storytelling.
Howeya Family Traditional Dance Group (Acoma Pueblo)
Dec. 10, noon-1 p.m.
Albuquerque, NM
Howeya Family Traditional Dance Group (Acoma Pueblo) will be dancing on this third day of American Indian Week.
Celebrate the seasonal cycles through prayer, song, and dance with our Cultural Dance Program. Dances connect us to our ancestors, community, and traditions while honoring gifts from our Creator.
They ensure that life continues and connections to the past and future are reinforced. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the only place in North America to offer cultural Native American dances every week, year-round.
Alnoba Film Night: Hidden Histories of Indigenous Peoples
Thursday, Dec. 15, 4 p.m.-7 p.m.
Kensington, NH
Bounty is a short documentary exposing painful truth of the Phips Proclamation, one of many laws that offered a bounty for colonial settlers in New England to hunt, scalp and murder Native American people. The story is told through the voices of modern-day Penobscot people and their children as they resist erasure and commemorate their survival.
Dawnland is an Emmy Award-winning film that goes behind the scenes with the Maine Wabanaki State Truth & Reconciliation Commission, the first official body in the United States to investigate the state practice of removing Native American children from their homes to “save them from being Indian.” Discover how the commission grappled with difficult truths and charted a new course for state and tribal relations.
Both Bounty and Dawnland were produced by Upstander Project, a nonprofit that uses storytelling to nurture “upstanders”—those who will actively confront injustice and work to heal past harm for a stronger future.
The films will be introduced by Mishy Lesser, co-founder and Learning Director for Upstander Project. A discussion with Mishy and Bounty co-director Dawn Neptune Adams will follow the viewing of the films.
We Still Live Here Film Screening and Discussion
Tuesday, Dec. 13, 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
Boston, MA
We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân is the story of the revitalization of the Wampanoag language, the first time a language with no native speakers has been revived in this country. The Wampanoag’s ancestors ensured the survival of the Pilgrims in New England and lived to regret it. Nevertheless, through resilience and courage, they kept their identity alive and remained on their ancestral lands. Now a cultural revival is taking place.
The story begins in 1994 when Jessie Little Doe, an intrepid, 30-something Wampanoag social worker, began having recurring dreams: familiar-looking people from another time addressing her in an incomprehensible language. Jessie was perplexed and a little annoyed — why couldn’t they speak English? Later, she realized they were speaking Wampanoag, a language no one had used for more than a century.
These events sent her and members of the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag communities on an odyssey that would uncover hundreds of documents written in their ancestral language, lead Jessie to earn herself a master’s degree in linguistics at MIT, and result in something that had never been done before – bringing a language alive again in an American Indian community after many generations with no native speakers. With commitment, study groups, classes, and communitywide effort, many are approaching fluency. Jessie’s young daughter Mae is the first native speaker in more than a hundred years.
The Arnold and Augusta Newman Lecture Series: Will Wilson
Thursday, Dec. 15, 6:30 p.m.
Minneapolis, MA
Will Wilson is the Program Head of Photography at Santa Fe Community College and has held visiting professorships at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Oberlin College, and the University of Arizona. His work has been exhibited and collected internationally. He has won the Native American Fine Art Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Sculpture, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for Photography, N.M. Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and in 2020 was the Doran Artist in Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery.
Will Wilson’s creative work centers around the continuation and transformation of customary Indigenous cultural practice. Through three primary projects - Auto Immune Response (AIR), The Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX), and Connecting the Dots: for a Just Transition – Wilson expands the possibilities of what contemporary art can be and declares that traditional art is a living, breathing, and vital force that has always been innovative.
As honorary speaker of the annual Arnold and Augusta Newman Lecture, Wilson will provide an overview of his artistic practice and work with The Carter’s current exhibition, ‘Speaking with Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography.’ The event will conclude with a conversation and Q&A between Wilson and Casey Riley, Chair of Global Contemporary Art and Curator of Photography & New Media.
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