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Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Big Draw!
This weekend, come and capture the movements of powwow dancing with line, gesture and texture. The museum is participating in this year's The Big Draw! event -- artist Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band Choctaw/Cherokee) will lead the drawing activities.
Larry Yazzie (Diné) and the Native Pride Dancers will be performing. The event is very popular - first come, first served -- and will take place this Saturday, July 18 from 11 am to 4 pm
Pictured: The Big Draw! 2008 -- photo by Stephen Lang.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
A Song for the Horse Nation
“Horse Nation” Exhibition Premieres Nov. 14 in New York City
The enduring relationship between Native people and the horse will be illustrated through vivid personal accounts and a spectacular array of objects in “A Song for the Horse Nation,” opening Saturday, Nov. 14, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center. Starting with the return of the horse to the Americas in 15th century, the exhibition traces how Native people adapted the horse into their cultural and spiritual lives and integrated it into their geographic expansion, warfare and defense.
“A Song for the Horse Nation” will present 95 works, including elaborate horse trappings, clothing and photographs and will close March 7, 2011. The exhibition will then continue at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., from June 2011 through January 2013. Afterward, the exhibition is expected to tour nationally through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service program (SITES).
Originally native to the American continent, horses became extinct but were reintroduced by the Spanish, and later by the French, English and Dutch—beginning with Columbus’ second voyage in 1493. Native people soon adopted the horse and became some of the world’s best horsemen. Horses were used to enhance trade, expand territory, facilitate hunting and wage war. Included in the exhibition will be a Lakota winter count (ca. 1902) by Long Soldier (Hunkpapa Lakota) that depicts when horses were first sighted by the community.
Paired with the introduction of the gun, the mounted Plains warrior was a formidable fighter, upsetting old alliances among the tribes and frustrating European advances. Young men proved their valor through the horse raid, where they captured horses from enemy camps.
Horses also became integrated in Native American cultural and spiritual life, representing the primary virtues of agility, grace and beauty. The exhibition includes a graceful dance stick (ca. 1890) by No Two Horns (Hunkpapa Lakota), created to honor his horse that died at the Battle of Big Horn.
Later, the rise of reservations, the U.S. Army’s calculated destruction of American Indian ponies and government policies that forced Native people to adopt farming eroded the day-to-day relationship of Native people and horses. Despite these changes, the horse’s place in Native culture and memory remains strong. The Crow Nation has actively maintained its horse traditions, and others, like the Nez Perce, are engaged in rebuilding their horse breeds and revitalizing their equestrian way of life. The Future Generations Ride that involves Native youth has evolved from The Big Foot Memorial Ride, held as a healing ride to honor those massacred at Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
“Even though the pinnacle of the horse lasted only a century, this exhibition details how Native people rapidly integrated the horse into their lifeways, quickly becoming among the best mounted soldiers in the world,” said Kevin Gover (Pawnee/Comanche), director of the National Museum of the American Indian.
“This exhibition, which traces the accomplishments and identity of Native people and the horse, perfectly complements our previous exhibition about Native women’s dresses, ‘Identity by Design,’” said John Haworth (Cherokee), director of the Heye Center. “We are so proud to be premiering this exhibition, which will travel the country, here in New York.”
“A Song for the Horse Nation” includes many examples of elaborate horse trappings, including a dazzling horse crupper adorned with exceptionally fine quillwork (Cree or Red River Metis, ca. 1850) and clothing adorned with images of the horse, such as a colorful Lakota baby bonnet (South Dakota or North Dakota, ca. 1900). New work has also been commissioned for the exhibition. A dazzling horse mask, with yellow, blue-gray and dark-red quillwork and trimmed with fresh-cut feathers, was created by Juanita Growing Thunder (Assiniboine/Sioux). The work is based on a 19th-century Northern Cheyenne quilled horse mask, also included in the exhibition.
“A Song for the Horse Nation” was curated by museum curator Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala Lakota). An accompanying publication edited by Her Many Horses and the scholar George P. Horse Capture (A’aninin) is available at the museum’s shops and the museum’s Web site.
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center is located at One Bowling Green in New York City, across from Battery Park. The museum is free and open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays until 8 p.m. For information, call (212) 514-3700 or visit the museum’s Web site at http://www.americanindian.si.edu/.
Image: Juanita Growing Thunder Fogarty (Assiniboine/Sioux, b. 1969), Horse mask, 2008. Porcupine quills, seed beads, brass buttons, feathers and hide. (26/7046). Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Celebrate the Sun!
Don't forget -- tomorrow (Sat, June 13) get your hands-on fill of sunshine with sun stamps and these cool sun petroglyph plates. Then dance away to Estudiantinia Boliva.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Annie Pootoogook and Andrea Carlson
This Saturday June 13, two new exhibitions will be opening up the museum--two solo shows by Native women artists. Annie Pootoogook will comprise 39 drawings from the acclaimed Inuit artist. The second show will have large-scale works on paper with complex symbolism from emerging artist Andrea Carlson (Anishinaabe/European).
Andrea Carlson creates work that reflects cultural narratives and stories. Her symbols often play with the idea of monsters, or cannibals, who munch their way through a landscape filled with art and images from around the world.
Pootoogook's work chronicles contemporary Inuit life--the mundane chores of the everyday, stark interiors and still lifes as well as domestic conflict and personal discord. She was awarded the Sobey Art Prize in Canada in 2006 and included in documenta 12.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Native American school band rocks the oldies—and the ancients
“What we do is get a flatbed truck,” said Kim Cournoyer, Standing Rock High School band director. “We put a generator on there, we plug in the electric bass, and we play.”
Standing Rock High School visits the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to perform an ancient Lakota warrior song, “The Land You Fear”
By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service
New York—Ten years ago Kim Cournoyer answered an ad seeking a music teacher at the high school on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Fort Yates, N.D.
An urban Indian, Cournoyer was raised in the Chicago suburbs, far from the rural reservation of her forbears, which straddles the border of North and South Dakota. But the University of South Dakota-trained clarinetist had a dream of starting an all-Indian high school band.
On June 5 at 1 p.m., the Standing Rock High School Band will perform a free concert at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. For details, visit http://www.americanindian.com/.
The museum appearance is part of a tour on which the band will play an ancient Lakota prayer song called “The Land You Fear.” Cournoyer spent the spring transcribing it from the oral tradition and arranging it for the band.
“I believe the students need to embrace their culture, kind of like I did,” said Cournoyer, 45, who is Standing Rock Sioux, like most of her students.
Learn more about the Standing Rock High School Band by going to www.myspace.com/standingrockschoolband.
American Indian marching bands emerged in the boarding-school era, when students were trained in European musical instruments and patriotic marches. From the 1930s through the 1950s, dozens of Indian nations had their own marching bands made up of musicians trained in boarding schools. A few of these bands survive, such as the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe Band of Arizona and Nevada, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2006.
But today all-Indian high school bands are rare, said Georgia Wettlin-Larsen, director of the First Nations Composer Initiative. Musical education, beyond culturally-based drumming and singing, is almost nonexistent in tribal schools, she said. That makes Cournoyer’s program both distinctive and important.
“I was so excited when I first saw them,” Wettlin-Larsen said. “Native kids playing instruments. Like other high school bands, they play high school band music. Now, they are incorporating traditional Lakota music.”
The high cost of music instruction is a common barrier, but the Standing Rock Sioux community, where unemployment hovers around 70 percent, does not let that stand in the band’s way. The school district buys all the instruments, although the band lacks marching harnesses, equipment to support massive instruments such as tubas.
“We don’t have tubas, so I substitute with bass lines,” Cournoyer explained. “What we do is get a flatbed truck, we put a generator on there, we plug in the electric bass, and we play.”
“The Land You Fear” is a song that Courtney Yellow Fat, lead singer of Grammy-nominated powwow drum group Lakota Thunder, introduced to Cournoyer. Yellow Fat is also the culture and language teacher at Standing Rock Middle School.
The “Land You Fear” is old, probably from before Columbus landed in the Americas. It was recorded in the early 1900s by anthropologist Frances Densmore (1867-1957). But like most indigenous music, it had not been written down before.
“That song was meant for a warrior to go off to war and not have any fear,” Yellow Fat said. “In contemporary times, we put out a warrior who must be a well-rounded person, who must be a warrior for the people.”
Those close to the band say they hope the song will become a bridge for understanding between Native people and mainstream America.
New York City composer Maurice Patrick Byers, former composer in residence at LaGuardia Arts High School, the renowned “Fame” school, likens the potential of Cournoyer’s program to what happened in the 1990s when the Soweto String Quartet began transcribing the traditional music of its members’ South African tribe and performing it on stringed instruments.
Hear the Soweto String Quartet at http://www.sowetostringquartet.co.za/
“Imagine apartheid in South Africa, and these four African musicians show up with this (indigenous) music on the string quartet,” Byers said. “Blacks and whites go crazy for it. That is the same kind of bridge-building that is necessary in the United States.”
Once the song is written, it has the potential to be published as sheet music other bands could perform. Standing Rock High School’s rendition of “The Land You Fear” promises to be dramatic. In addition to the student musicians, Cournoyer will play the cedar flute, Yellow Fat will sing, and powwow dancers will perform.
Byers said, “You could create something that sort of sounds like it, and is superficial. But that’s not her at all.”
What most concerns Cournoyer, speaking between classes late in the school year, is her students’ future.
In the 10 years since the band started—with 14 kids—nearly 100 percent of the band’s students have graduated. Some of them have used the discipline they gained in learning to play music to go to two- or four-year colleges. Most are employed, and living productive lives in the community. Yellow Fat said many are involved with their culture.
Cournoyer hopes this tour, into which she has built time to explore New York City, will broaden her students’ horizons. It is the Standing Rock Sioux teacher’s prayer that her students, as the ancient song that she transcribed says, will learn to walk with victory, instead of fear.
“I want them to know that this world is bigger than they think it is,” Cournoyer said. “And they are capable of so much more than they think they are.”
Hear Lakota Thunder by going to www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQFmTwbQpE.
Visit the First Nations Composers Initiative at http://www.fnci.org/.
Standing Rock High School visits the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to perform an ancient Lakota warrior song, “The Land You Fear”
By Kara Briggs
American Indian News Service
New York—Ten years ago Kim Cournoyer answered an ad seeking a music teacher at the high school on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Fort Yates, N.D.
An urban Indian, Cournoyer was raised in the Chicago suburbs, far from the rural reservation of her forbears, which straddles the border of North and South Dakota. But the University of South Dakota-trained clarinetist had a dream of starting an all-Indian high school band.
On June 5 at 1 p.m., the Standing Rock High School Band will perform a free concert at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. For details, visit http://www.americanindian.com/.
The museum appearance is part of a tour on which the band will play an ancient Lakota prayer song called “The Land You Fear.” Cournoyer spent the spring transcribing it from the oral tradition and arranging it for the band.
“I believe the students need to embrace their culture, kind of like I did,” said Cournoyer, 45, who is Standing Rock Sioux, like most of her students.
Learn more about the Standing Rock High School Band by going to www.myspace.com/standingrockschoolband.
American Indian marching bands emerged in the boarding-school era, when students were trained in European musical instruments and patriotic marches. From the 1930s through the 1950s, dozens of Indian nations had their own marching bands made up of musicians trained in boarding schools. A few of these bands survive, such as the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe Band of Arizona and Nevada, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2006.
But today all-Indian high school bands are rare, said Georgia Wettlin-Larsen, director of the First Nations Composer Initiative. Musical education, beyond culturally-based drumming and singing, is almost nonexistent in tribal schools, she said. That makes Cournoyer’s program both distinctive and important.
“I was so excited when I first saw them,” Wettlin-Larsen said. “Native kids playing instruments. Like other high school bands, they play high school band music. Now, they are incorporating traditional Lakota music.”
The high cost of music instruction is a common barrier, but the Standing Rock Sioux community, where unemployment hovers around 70 percent, does not let that stand in the band’s way. The school district buys all the instruments, although the band lacks marching harnesses, equipment to support massive instruments such as tubas.
“We don’t have tubas, so I substitute with bass lines,” Cournoyer explained. “What we do is get a flatbed truck, we put a generator on there, we plug in the electric bass, and we play.”
“The Land You Fear” is a song that Courtney Yellow Fat, lead singer of Grammy-nominated powwow drum group Lakota Thunder, introduced to Cournoyer. Yellow Fat is also the culture and language teacher at Standing Rock Middle School.
The “Land You Fear” is old, probably from before Columbus landed in the Americas. It was recorded in the early 1900s by anthropologist Frances Densmore (1867-1957). But like most indigenous music, it had not been written down before.
“That song was meant for a warrior to go off to war and not have any fear,” Yellow Fat said. “In contemporary times, we put out a warrior who must be a well-rounded person, who must be a warrior for the people.”
Those close to the band say they hope the song will become a bridge for understanding between Native people and mainstream America.
New York City composer Maurice Patrick Byers, former composer in residence at LaGuardia Arts High School, the renowned “Fame” school, likens the potential of Cournoyer’s program to what happened in the 1990s when the Soweto String Quartet began transcribing the traditional music of its members’ South African tribe and performing it on stringed instruments.
Hear the Soweto String Quartet at http://www.sowetostringquartet.co.za/
“Imagine apartheid in South Africa, and these four African musicians show up with this (indigenous) music on the string quartet,” Byers said. “Blacks and whites go crazy for it. That is the same kind of bridge-building that is necessary in the United States.”
Once the song is written, it has the potential to be published as sheet music other bands could perform. Standing Rock High School’s rendition of “The Land You Fear” promises to be dramatic. In addition to the student musicians, Cournoyer will play the cedar flute, Yellow Fat will sing, and powwow dancers will perform.
Byers said, “You could create something that sort of sounds like it, and is superficial. But that’s not her at all.”
What most concerns Cournoyer, speaking between classes late in the school year, is her students’ future.
In the 10 years since the band started—with 14 kids—nearly 100 percent of the band’s students have graduated. Some of them have used the discipline they gained in learning to play music to go to two- or four-year colleges. Most are employed, and living productive lives in the community. Yellow Fat said many are involved with their culture.
Cournoyer hopes this tour, into which she has built time to explore New York City, will broaden her students’ horizons. It is the Standing Rock Sioux teacher’s prayer that her students, as the ancient song that she transcribed says, will learn to walk with victory, instead of fear.
“I want them to know that this world is bigger than they think it is,” Cournoyer said. “And they are capable of so much more than they think they are.”
Hear Lakota Thunder by going to www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQFmTwbQpE.
Visit the First Nations Composers Initiative at http://www.fnci.org/.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Children's Festival Preview
Snapped a few quick pictures of the dancers in the Rotunda, teaching local schoolkids some new moves. They'll be at the festival tomorrow and Sunday -- noon to 5 pm.
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