Category: Arts & Entertainment

Tribal college fundraiser features real Coast Salish art

This year’s TL’aneq’ benefit dinner includes a live fashion show by international designer Dorothy Grant

Ryan Key-Wynne, Public Information Officer, Northwest Indian College
 
International designer Dorothy Grant, who is Kaigani Haida from Alaska, will host a live fashion show at Northwest Indian College’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Grant’s unique style combines traditional Haida artwork with contemporary clothing for an effect that has gained her worldwide acclaim. Photo courtesy of Dorothy Grant
International designer Dorothy Grant, who is Kaigani Haida from Alaska, will host a live fashion show at Northwest Indian College’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Grant’s unique style combines traditional Haida artwork with contemporary clothing for an effect that has gained her worldwide acclaim. Photo courtesy of Dorothy Grant

On April 12, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) will host its 5th Annual TL’aneq’: Gathering for a Celebration benefit dinner and Native cultural arts and experiences auction from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Swinomish Casino & Lodge. The event is the college’s biggest fundraising event of the year and – this year – will also celebrate NWIC’s 30th anniversary.

 
“I am truly looking forward to this year’s TL’aneq’ benefit dinner. This is a great opportunity to celebrate Coast Salish art and culture and share a meal and laughter, all while raising money to support our students,” NWIC President Justin Guillory said. “This has been a successful event, and we want to continue to build on that success by bringing friends and supporters of NWIC together in a good way for a good cause.”
 
The evening will begin with a silent auction, during which attendees will have a chance to bid on Coast Salish art – including paintings, carvings, jewelry and woven pieces – and they can speak directly with artists who have donated their work for the event. After that, a four-course dinner featuring fresh salmon, storytelling, a live fashion show and live auction will begin.
 
“You never know what will happen during the live auction,” said Ryan Key-Wynne, NWIC’s public information officer. “Last year, one of our supporters commandeered the mic and pleaded with others in the room to bid with her on a cultural experience. She said the experience would be a good opportunity to make new friends.”
 
Key-Wynne explained that bidding is usually competitive, with people bidding against each other, not with each other.
 
“Our auctioneer just stood there laughing, waiting for her to hand the mic back,” Key-Wynne said. “It was unprecedented, but very funny and the combined bid raised more than she would have contributed on her own.”
Coast Salish artists are the backbone of the TL’aneq’ fundraiser. Art, including this carving by Steven Charlie of the Squamish Nation, is donated by the artists each year and all of the profits help support a selected NWIC project or program. This year, all funds raised will go toward scholarships for NWIC students. Photo courtesy of NWIC
Coast Salish artists are the backbone of the TL’aneq’ fundraiser. Art, including this carving by Steven Charlie of the Squamish Nation, is donated by the artists each year and all of the profits help support a selected NWIC project or program. This year, all funds raised will go toward scholarships for NWIC students. Photo courtesy of NWIC
 
This year’s live auction will be preceded by a fashion show by international designer Dorothy Grant, who is Kaigani Haida from Alaska. Grant’s unique style combines traditional Haida artwork with contemporary clothing for an effect that has gained her worldwide acclaim.
 
“We are honored that Dorothy Grant will be joining our efforts at the college’s premier gala. Her fashion show willbe a lot of fun, especially with our student models,” said Greg Masten, director of NWIC’s Development Office, which organizes the event.
 
Last year, the event raised nearly $100,000, which helped NWIC match a $500,000 award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the college’s new Coast Salish Institute Building.
 
Funds from this year’s event will go toward supporting NWIC student scholarships. NWIC, which is the only tribal college in Washington and Idaho, has a student body that represents more than 120 tribes from across the nation.
 
“It’s a misconception that Native students get their education paid for.Scholarships mean a lot to our students, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college and who are working toward four and two year degrees so they can help their tribal communities,” Masten said.
 
Individual tickets are available for $250 or table sponsorships are available from $2,500 to $20,000.
 
NWIC would like to thank sponsors for the 5h Annual TL’aneq:
·         Premier Sponsor: Lummi Indian Business Council
·         Host Sponsor: Swinomish Tribe
·         Exclusive Reception Sponsor: Tulalip Tribes
·         Lengesot Patron Sponsors at the $5,000 level: the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, and the Snoqualmie Tribe
·         Cedar Sponsors at the $2,500 level: The Boeing Company, Puget Sound Energy, Morgan Stanley, and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe
 
NWIC would also like to acknowledge and thank Judy Mich for her continued generosity of a $15,000 sponsorship, and give a special thanks to the generosity of the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians.
 
For more information, to donate to the event or to buy a ticket or sponsor a table, contact Development Office staff Mariah Dodd at (360) 392-4217 or mariahd@nwic.edu or Colleen Baker at (360) 392- 4305 or cbaker@nwic.edu.
 

Henry’s ‘Out [o] Fashion’ exhibit takes boundaries off beauty

Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery poses a photographic puzzle with “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,’ a wide-ranging show exploring cultural attitudes about beauty, running through Sept. 1, 2013.

By Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times

Henry Art Gallery
Frank A. Rinehart
“Hattie Tom, Apache” (1899), platinum print

What is beauty? How do concepts of beauty change? And who possesses beauty — those who observe it or those who are observed?

These are among the questions raised in “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty,” a new exhibit at the Henry Art Gallery, curated by Deborah Willis, the first scholar to take part in the Henry’s new Visiting Fellow Program.

Willis is a historian of African-American photography who teaches at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she serves as professor and chair of photography and imaging. A few years ago, the Henry invited her to pore through its holdings and those of the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, with the idea of exploring “different attitudes about and cultural interpretations of beauty.”

“Out [o] Fashion Photography” is the result. It’s a big show that weighs how men photograph women, how women photograph men, how photographers turn their lenses on members of the own sex or people of other races, and, finally, how some artists — Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, the amazing Janieta Eyre — translate themselves into the most unlikely photographic icons.

As the exhibit’s punning title suggests, it deals with how ideals of beauty can go out of style, while also acknowledging the role fashion has played in shaping our concept of beauty. Wildly diverse in content, it asks viewers to draw their own connections more than it spells anything out for them.

Willis has divided it into three “thematic groupings,” although she cautions in her catalog essay that “there is overlap throughout, and many images can be discussed in multiple categories.”

If that sounds vague to the point of being unhelpful, it is.

The exhibit is better approached as a free-associative romp through the Henry/UW collections by someone with a curious eye. One question that gets raised again and again, in all three sections, is: Who is exploiting whom in the photographic process?

Willis starts off with works by Edward S. Curtis, whose passion about documenting vanishing Native American cultures may have overridden a more personal connection between the photographer and his subject.

Still, Curtis’ “Two Moons — Cheyenne” (1910) is a fine thing to behold, catching the essence of the war chief’s proud, weathered character. Frank A. Rinehart’s “Hattie Tom, Apache” (1899) tells a different story: The look of skepticism the young woman levels at the camera is withering.

Honest portraiture is one thing. Voyeurism is another.

The voyeuristic norm — of a male eye trained on a female form for purposes of arousal — seems most vividly and straightforwardly represented by E.J. Bellocq’s “Storyville Portrait” (c. 1912). But in other works, things get more complicated.

Don Wallen’s “Untitled” (1976), with its live female nude draped around a plastic-white mannequin, seems to comment on how synthetic some ideals of female beauty can be. Harry Callahan’s gorgeous silhouette shot of his wife, “Eleanor” (1948), uses photographic artifice to create something intimate, loving and mysterious.

Willis includes some actual fashion photography, including items by Hans L. Jorgensen and Irving Penn, where women are idealized by the camera, surely with their own full cooperation. And in shots of famous actresses — Cecil Beaton’s “Marlene Dietrich” (1930) and Benjamin J. Falk’s “Portrait of Miss Rush, the Actress” (c. 1892/1897) — there’s little doubt that the models are shaping their own images as much as the photographer is. “Miss Rush,” in her bow-tie, jacket, vest and trousers, is a dapper gender-bender. Dietrich, here, is in pure glamour-queen mode.

The male figure, if a bit underrepresented, isn’t neglected in “Out [o] Fashion.”

Jack Pierson’s gauzy “Belvedere Clayton” (1992) portrays a dreamy young man, swaddled in a nightshirt, sprawled back in bed and gazing at the camera. There’s something so swooning and heady about his pose that he seems made of gossamer. George Dureau’s black male nude, “Glen Thompson, Rear” (1983), on the other hand, couldn’t be more directly carnal.

In some cases, subjects’ actions, more than their looks, lend a true hypnotic allure to their images. That’s the case with Lewis Wickes Hine’s “Powerhouse Mechanic” (1921) and Barbara Morgan’s “Martha Graham — Letter to the World” (1940), which are slyly juxtaposed in the show.

There’s fine work here that seemingly has nothing to do with Willis’ chosen theme. Weegee’s masterpiece “The Critic” (1943), in which a Bowery character snarls at two preening operagoers, is surely less about beauty than hostilities between two social worlds, while Lisette Model’s “Famous Gambler, Nice” (1934) comes off as a pure character study, with little thought about the attractiveness of its subject (although the photograph itself is certainly handsomely composed).

Diane Arbus’ “A Woman in a Bird Mask, N.Y.C.” (1967) delights in how artifice can triumph over age and take a turn for the beautiful-fantastical. But in Arbus’ “A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester, New York” (1968), it’s the total disconnect between husband, wife and child that rivets you far more than the incidental detail of the sunbathing mom’s classic, brittle 1960s looks.

Some of these puzzling inclusions might benefit from more commentary by Willis on individual photographs. Without that, the exhibition is mostly what you choose to make of it.

One thing for sure: There are plenty of photographic riches here — including work by Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Edward J. Steichen and many others — to make something from.

 

‘Room 237’: Seeing ‘The Shining’ through obsessive eyes

A movie review of “Room 237,” subtitled “An Inquiry Into ‘The Shining’ in 9 Parts.” Rodney Ascher’s fascinating documentary examines Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film from the divergent perspectives of five obsessive interpreters.

By Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times

The subtitle of “Room 237” is “Being an Inquiry Into ‘The Shining’ in 9 Parts,” and Rodney Ascher’s fascinating documentary subjects Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic (based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel) to intense scrutiny that ranges from critically astute to far-fetched absurdity.

The title of Ascher’s inquiry is taken from the Overlook Hotel, the haunted setting of King’s novel and Kubrick’s film. A forbidden place where unspeakable horrors occurred, Room 237 is just one of many mysteries that leave Kubrick’s film so enticingly open to interpretation.

Ascher invited five obsessive viewers to share their divergent observations about Kubrick’s film. Heard but never seen, their thoughts are accompanied by extensive clips from “The Shining” and dozens of other films, from the sci-fi cheesiness of “The Brain from Planet Arous” to the challenging formalism of “Last Year in Marienbad.”

If the result is best appreciated by serious cinephiles, so be it: “Room 237” is an act of uncommon devotion to cinema, embracing the notion that movies are best defined by what happens to us as we watch them — how our own beliefs and experiences dictate our interpretation of what we’ve seen and heard. At a time when analytical film essays are abundant on YouTube, “Room 237” acknowledges (to paraphrase one participant) that movies can yield interpretations far beyond the filmmaker’s artistic intentions.

Kubrick encouraged such interpretive latitude (especially with regard to “2001”), so when “Room 237” views “The Shining” through prisms of Native American genocide, the Holocaust, architectural oddities, numerology and even the ludicrous suggestion that Kubrick faked the Apollo moon landing on film, it’s a safe bet that Kubrick (who died in 1999) would be delighted with Ascher’s film. It confirms a work of importance and lasting value, which is all any serious artist can hope for.

Native filmmakers get students to open up

GWYNETH ROBERTS/Lincoln Journal Star1491s member Bobby Wilson (center) dances for the camera as Native Youth Leadership Symposium Participants (rear) watch during production of a public service announcement video Tuesday, April 2, 2013, at Morrill Hall.
GWYNETH ROBERTS/Lincoln Journal Star
1491s member Bobby Wilson (center) dances for the camera as Native Youth Leadership Symposium Participants (rear) watch during production of a public service announcement video Tuesday, April 2, 2013, at Morrill Hall.

April 03, 2013 6:00 am

By KEVIN ABOUREZK / Lincoln Journal Star

It’s 10 in the morning, and eight high school students won’t speak.

Dallas Goldtooth threatens them: “Someone start talking or I’m going to start calling on you.”

A boy fidgets. Two girls giggle and whisper.

Goldtooth asks again: What do you want to say in your video about alcoholism?

A boy in a black Nike sweatshirt clears his throat.

“It tears families apart,” he says. “Some people forget their heritage when they drink.”

And so begins another video from the 1491s.

The guerrilla Native filmmakers and comedy troupe came to Lincoln on Tuesday to help participants of the Sovereign Native Youth Leadership program shoot a video. The Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs hosted the 1491s’ visit and sponsors the youth program — high school students from Nebraska’s four tribes learning to be leaders.

Last week, to prepare for the 1491s’ visit, the students brainstormed ideas. But on Tuesday, the five members of the 1491s struggle to get students to share them.

Goldtooth, one of the group’s founders, tells students the filmmakers are there to help them find their voice.

“You dictate the direction,” he says.

Ryan Red Corn, an Osage member of the 1491s, shares the story of a young woman they met at a Native boarding school who told them about briefly escaping the school to retrieve berries from a nearby tree. The 1491s made a video about it.

The 1491s have lampooned everything from the movie “The Last of the Mohicans” to powwow emcees, and they’ve gotten hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube.

Despite their popularity, at least two Native students haven’t seen their work.

As the morning wears on, the students begin opening up, a little at a time.

Two brothers from Winnebago speak about their dad, who once struggled with alcoholism but quit after his children were born. They talk about losing their uncle to cirrhosis, a liver disease prevalent in alcoholics.

“Top that,” student Skyler Walker says, daring the others to beat his story and eliciting laughter.

So how does a mixed bag of comedians and filmmakers get shy Native students to open up? Red Corn says it’s important to make them laugh and see themselves as important.

The 1491s spend much of Tuesday making each other laugh, poking fun at Red Corn for being half white and Goldtooth for enjoying food too much.

Eventually, they begin teasing the students, including Skyler and his brother Max, who are half Ho-Chunk and half white. The boys call themselves “half chunks.”

“Half chunk 1 and half chunk 2,” the 1491s call them.

Then they turn on each other: “Osage sounds like a drunk person speaking Dakota,” Goldtooth says to Red Corn.

But then, just a little, the tone of their conversation shifts.

As he talks about his love of gourd dancing in the Omaha tribal tradition, student Marco Ramos cuts short a conversation between Red Corn and comedian Bobby Wilson.

“Quit holding hands and pay attention,” he says, as the room erupts in applause and laughter.

Later at lunch, Scott Shafer of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs describes how difficult it has been getting the students to open up to the presenters they have heard since the program began its second year this past fall. So often, students have struggled to connect to policymakers and professionals, he says.

That wasn’t the case Tuesday as the students and the 1491s developed ideas for their video on alcoholism.

One student describes adults who tell her not to drink but who then drink themselves.

Somewhere in the room, an idea flickers.

Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, who has directed several movies and documentaries, offers an idea that involves the students making the video’s viewers believe they were talking about using drugs and alcohol.

“It helps me forget my worries,” Cheyenne Gottula, an Oglala who attends Lincoln High School, says before the camera. “My mom’s the one who got me into it.”

Then, the reveal.

“I like playing volleyball.”

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 402-473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.

Hopis Try to Stop Paris Sale of Artifacts

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer

70 sacred Hopi masks that are set to be auctioned in France are estimated to be worth $1 million. The New York Times reports, the auction is set for April 12th at Néret-Minet auction house. Néret-Minet states that the items were legally obtained over 30 years ago and that this auction should be considered a homage to the Hopi Indians and they should be happy so many people want to understand and analyze their civilization.

Mr. Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office has responded with,

“The Hopi Tribe is just disgusted with the continued offensive marketing of Hopi culture.”  The Hopi Tribe has attempted to contact the auction house with no luck and has sought legal council on possible ways to bring the masks back to their rightful owners, The Hopi Tribe.

Marysville/Tulalip Relay events kick off April 6

By Kirk Boxleitner, The Marysville Globe

MARYSVILLE — Before the Marysville/Tulalip Relay For Life returns to Asbery Field on June 29-30, Relay teams and organizers are offering the community a cavalcade of activities and opportunities to contribute, starting with the “Team Captain Experience” event on Saturday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Stillaguamish Senior Center.

“The American Cancer Society is passionate about giving tools and information to our Relay teams to help them be successful,” said Stephani Earling, community relationship manager for the Great West Division of the ACS. “This event is designed specifically for Relay team captains, and will include powerful information about the latest in the fight against cancer, tips to make the biggest personal impact you can, networking opportunities, food, fun and more.”

Marysville/Tulalip Relay team captains will be joined at the event by those from Arlington, Stanwood, Granite Falls, Lake Stevens and Camano Island who will be treated to a speakers’ panel on the best practices for getting their teams and communities motivated. Earling advised the team captains to RSVP at least a couple of days before the event by logging onto www.relayrumble.org/westernwa.

Earling explained that such measures, to provide an additional push to get folks interested and involved, tie into this year’s Relay theme of “Relay Big,” which is likewise reflected in the Marysville/Tulalip Relay organizers’ goals of recruiting 80 teams to raise $200,000 this year.

“The ACS does a great job of furnishing participants with the tools and resources to conduct successful Relays, but I’ve already seen great energy from Marysville and Tulalip,” Earling said. “These communities’ levels of awareness about cancer research, and the steps that are being taken to fight back, gives me a lot of hope. They’re on an awesome trajectory.”

The Relay activities on Saturday, May 18, aim to keep that momentum going with “Bark For Life,” “Paint the Town Purple” and “Brewin’ Up the Cure.” For the third year, “Bark For Life” will also return to Asbery Field, from 9 a.m. to noon, for a fee of $20 per dog.

“We’re anticipating a great turnout,” Earling said. “Last year, we had about 35 dogs and their owners attend, and we raised more than $4,000.”

Those who are interested in attending the event, starting a team or making a donation can go to http://relay.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/BFLFY12GW?fr_id=46074&pg=entry, or go to www.relayforlife.org and search for “Marysville.”

Earling expressed equal optimism about “Paint the Town Purple,” which gives businesses in the downtown Marysville area the opportunity to decorate their storefronts, in the week leading up to “Bark For Life,” to show support for the Bark and Relay For Life.

“These events are an awesome way for these area businesses to come together for the common cause of bringing awareness to finding a cure for cancer,” said Earling, who elaborated that “Brewin’ Up the Cure” is the coffee stand-specific part of “Paint the Town Purple.” “Each coffee stand will be able not only to decorate their stands, but also to sell little paper stars and moons to their customers, which will be displayed in their windows. All the money raised will go toward the Marysville/Tulalip Relay.”

Earling encouraged participants in both “Paint the Town Purple” and “Brewin’ Up the Cure” to come up with fun and wild decorations and displays, since Relay organizers are framing it as a friendly competition and will be recognizing the businesses who raise the most money and have the best decorations.

In the meantime, Marysville/Tulalip Relay Committee meetings start at 6:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month, and Relay team captains meet at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday of each month, at the Marysville Holiday Inn Express’ banquet room, across the parking lot from the hotel itself.

Everything comes together at Anacortes Salmon Derby

The seventh running of the Anacortes Salmon Derby over the weekend was the best in the event’s history by almost any measure, and arguably one of the top state fishing tournaments, period, in recent memory.

Great weather, no wind, plenty of fish, heavyweight winners, well over a thousand anglers on the water — and always with that incomparable San Juan Island scenery as a backdrop. Very good stuff.

Those who believe that to fish a derby seriously you gotta put herring over the stern had their particular prejudice reinforced by first-place winner (21.52 pounds) Scott Fowler of Burlington. As he accepted his check for $15,000, Fowler said, “We fish bait, and it takes bait to catch big fish.” The herring was plug cut, according to derby board chairman Jay Field, and the fish was caught at Point Lawrence on the derby’s first day.

Second place and $5,000 went to Rich Olson of Everett, whose salmon weighed 19.42 pounds. Jay Murphy of Puyallup was third, winning $2,500 for his 19.1-pound salmon.

Last year’s first-place fish was slightly larger than Fowler’s, at 21.7 pounds, but the 256 total fish weighed was a record for the event and far outclassed 2012’s total of 211 chinook.

Jennifer Payne of Friday Harbor won the Women’s Division, with a 14.69-pound blackmouth, while Seth Baumgarten of Mercer Island nailed the Youth Division, at 16.52 pounds. Field said every youngster entered took home a prize.

There seemed to be no particular hot spot Saturday or Sunday. The catch was pretty well scattered over most of the productive spots, Field said, and even those who managed to camp on the banks before the early-morning ebb took fish.

A new addition to the derby was enthusiastically received, Field said. “GAFFF,” the Great Anacortes Fishing Film Festival, made its debut with home video fishing footage to entertain the 500-plus in attendance.

Winner of the Pro Division was charter owner and radio show host Rob Endsley of Gig Harbor, Wash., and Craig, Alaska. Winner of the Amateur Division was Jim Ramos of Sedro-Woolley, while Steve Chamberlin was voted by the audience as the Silver Horde Anglers’ Choice winner for his geat action footage and sound track.

The derby — a sellout every year — is sponsored by the Fidalgo-San Juan Islands Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers, and proceeds fund scholarships to benefit young adults pursuing careers in fishery management or a related field. The derby has disbursed more than $163,000 in scholarships and grants during the past six years.

Kids’ spring fishing

Put a kid and a fishing rod together and you create a great thing. Toward that end, the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Club, Puget Sound Anglers, has announced its spring schedule of free or low-cost trout fishing events for youth in the Everett area. The events are co-sponsored with other state and local organizations.

First up, April 17, is a kids’ trout fishing class at Silver Lake’s Sullivan Park in south Everett, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The $5 class covers all the basics novice anglers should know to fish trout successfully in our local lakes. For pre-registration call Everett Parks and Recreation at 425-257-8300, ext. 2.

Next is a free kids’ trout pond, April 27-28, at the Evergreen Recreation and Sportsmen’s Expo at Evergreen Fairgrounds in Monroe. Trout left from the event, sponsored by Les Schwab and the Everett Steelhead and Salmon Youth Organization, will be placed in Lake Tye.

May 4 brings the popular kids’ fishing event at Jennings Pond in Marysville’s Jennings Park. It will run from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Open to youth 5 to 12 years old, fishing is free but sponsors ask that a can of food be donated at the event for a local food bank. There will be a one-fish limit until noon, when it opens to all kids and has a 5-trout limit. The event is co-sponsored by John’s Sporting Goods, Marysville Parks, Kiwanis and others.

May 11 is the Silver Lake kids’ fish-in at Sullivan Park. It runs 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for children ages 4 to 14 years. The event is free this year, but pre-registration with EvParks is required by calling 425-257-8300, ext. 2. There’s a 600-kid limit, and ESSC spokesman Jim Brauch said it will fill up.

On May 18 is the kids’ fishing event at north Gissberg Pond, Twin Lakes County Park, adjacent to the west side of I-5 at Smokey Point, north of Marysville. It’s free, open to ages 5-14, and there’s no registration required. Hours are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Everett Club stocks this one heavily and usually includes a nice scattering of big ‘bows in the 2- to 5-pound class. The North Pond is, by law, open to juveniles only.

Fishing seminars

Cabela’s Tulalip greets the 2013 spring fishing season with a selection of free fishing seminars, presented by local experts. Dates are April 13-14 and times are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Highlights include: Finding fish with Lowrance (Nick Kester); getting into trout fishing (Ryan Bigley); lingcod 101 (Gary Krein); targeting early season kings (Nick Kester); preparing for summer steelhead (Jim and Jennifer Stahl); reading trout water and fly casting for all ages (Federation of Fly Fishers); tuna fishing for the advanced angler; and a fly casting walk-in clinic with the FFF.

While there, check out the 2013 Northwest Salmon Derby Series grand-prize boat/trailer package.

For a full schedule of seminars and other Fishing Classic events, visit www.cabelas.com/tulalip or call 360-474-4880.

Cowlitz River

The fishery for late-run winter steelhead on the Cowlitz has produced pretty well recently. A state creel check last week tallied 45 boat fishermen with 17 steelhead. Bank anglers didn’t fare as well, and only a sprinkling of spring chinook was recorded.

Columbia Basin trout

A bunch of lakes in the Columbia Basin opened to early trout fishing on April 1, and state biologist Chad Jackson in Moses Lake gives a rundown on a few of them:

The Pillar-Widgeon chain, in the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, should be fair to good for rainbow. North and South Teal, among the “seep lakes” south of Potholes Reservooir were rehabilitated in 2010 and restocked each year since with rainbow fry. Many of those fish will be in the 12-inch range this year and fishing on both lakes should be good.

Dry Falls Lake near Coulee City is a selective-gear “quality” lake which should offer some of the best early-season action in the area, especially for catch and release anglers. It’s a one-fish limit water, but anglers average close to 10 trout per trip when catching and releasing, Jackson said. Most are 12 to 14 inches, but the lake carries a fair percentage of larger trout to 20 inches or better, plus a few brown and tiger trout to spice the mix.

Jackson said Upper and Lower Hampton are always popular, but are suffering from an infestation of nuisance fish and scheduled for rehab this fall. They hold a few large trout for those with the patience to work for them, Jackson said.

French plan to auction Hopi masks stirs furor

“Plans to auction the dramatic facial representations on April 12 spawned a protest from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and calls for the French government to intercede.”

A French auction house will auction off this Hopi kachina face depicting Crow Mother. Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou
A French auction house will auction off this Hopi kachina face depicting Crow Mother.
Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou
By Dennis Wagner

 

The Republic | azcentral.com

 

 

 

 

Tue Apr 2, 2013 11:36 PM

 

The Heard Museum and the Museum of Northern Arizona have joined Hopi cultural officials in urging a French auction house to cancel the planned sale this month of about 70 ceremonial kachina faces, known to tribal members as “friends.”

In Hopi theology, kachinas are supernatural messengers depicted in fantastical costumes worn during religious ceremonies. There are several hundred spirit characters in the pantheon representing wildlife, plants, human qualities, weather and other facets of nature or society.

Also known as katsinas, these characters are more commonly depicted in smaller form as carved doll-like figures.

Plans to auction the dramatic facial representations on April 12 spawned a protest from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and calls for the French government to intercede.

The Museum of Northern Arizona’s director, Robert Breunig, posted a letter Friday to the Paris auction house on Facebook, urging that the iconic, masklike visages be returned to Hopis of Arizona and the related New Mexico pueblos of Acoma, Zuni and Jemez.

“I can tell you from personal knowledge that the proposed sale of these katsina friends, and the international exposure of them, is causing outrage, sadness and stress among members of the affected tribes,” Breunig wrote. “For them, katsina friends are living beings. … To be displayed disembodied in your catalog, and on the Internet, is sacrilegious and offensive.”

The Heard Museum also posted a message on Facebook, which was e-mailed to the auctioneers in Paris: “This sale of items of significant religious and cultural importance to the Hopi Tribe is of extreme concern to our American Indian employees, particularly our Hopi employees.”

The Paris auction house, Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou, advertised plans to put the spiritual figureheads up for sale. Online promotions list combined estimated values exceeding $775,000.

One of the “Hopi masques” has a listed value of up to $64,000. Officials at the firm did not respond to e-mail or phone messages.

Last month, Hopi Cultural Preservation Office Director Leigh Kuwanwisiwma released a statement opposing the auction and asking Neret-Minet to “begin respectful discussions to return them back to the tribe.”

Kuwanwisiwma did not respond to an interview request, but a tribal representative said he received no response from Neret-Minet.

Sam Tenakhongva, Katsina Clan leader for the Hopi village of First Mesa, declined to be quoted unless The Arizona Republic agreed to prior censorship of stories about the controversy.

Micah Loma’omvaya, chief of staff to Hopi Chairman LeRoy Shingoitewa, said his boss and the Tribal Council have yet to address the matter.

The Hopi religion is so secretive, and the kachina spirit figures’ roles so crucial, that tribal officials oppose publication of photographs. They also object to the word “mask” as a description of the supernatural caricatures worn by Hopi men during ceremonies.

That cultural sensitivity may be confusing, however, because Hopi artisans commercially produce and sell thousands of wooden effigies depicting the same spiritual entities. In fact, a Katsina Doll Marketplace scheduled April 13 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix boasts 100 artisans and is touted as “the nation’s largest gathering of Hopi katsina doll carvers.”

According to a Neret-Minet catalog, the collection in Paris was assembled by “a connoisseur with peerless tastes” who lived in the United States for three decades and spent time with the tribe.

“By his own admission, you have to see the masks in dances to fully appreciate them,” the text says. “The art and history of the Hopi are intimately linked.”

Objects that date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are made from leather, fur, plants, feathers and other natural materials. They depict benevolent characters such as Crow Mother (Angwusnasomtaqa), the matron of all kachinas, and Mud Head Clown (Kooyemsi), who is “both the supreme mediator between good and evil and an insolent buffoon prone to scatological pranks.”

Jose Villarreal, editor and publisher at artdaily.org, which announced the auction, said he has been bombarded with e-mail complaints from Hopis who are “very mad.” Villarreal said he contacted the Neret-Minet and was informed that the sale will go as planned because the kachina art was legally obtained.

Marketing materials do not explain when or how the religious artworks were acquired. In past U.S. cases, some works have been secretly sold to collectors for a profit by tribal members.

The Hopi Cultural Preservation Office statement says, “It is our position that these sacred objects should never have left the jurisdiction of the Hopi Tribe. … No one, other than a Hopi tribal member, has a right to possess these ceremonial objects.”

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 established a process for Indian tribes to reclaim funerary and sacred items within the U.S., but it carries no international authority.

The Heard Museum statement says France adopted provisions of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and therefore should “take steps to return these ceremonial objects.”

In his letter to the auction house, Breunig noted that kachinas represent “a connection between the human world and the spirits of all living things and the ancestors” for tribal members. “I appeal to your sense of decency and humanity and request that you terminate the auction,” he added.

Numerous Hopis joined discussions of the controversy on museum Facebook pages, expressing outrage at the planned auction and at those who may have betrayed the tribe in the past by selling religious artifacts.

Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizona republic.com or 602-444- 8874

Feature Film About Life of a Pow Wow Fancy Dancer Begins Filming This Summer

By Scott Barta, Indian Country Today Media Network

The first of its kind Hollywood film about American Indian life on the pow wow circuit is tentatively set to begin filming this July. The story will follow the life of a young men’s fancy dance contestant who travels and competes at pow wows held in Native communities across the Plains and Southwest. The production entitled, Dance Hard, is a behind-the-scenes look at pow-wow life and will take approximately four weeks to film. The film project will be employing local tradespeople and casting and lead actors and extras from among fresh, new local talent from many states, including New Mexico, South Dakota, and Montana, as well as Canada.

The writer, producer, and director of the project is Megan Clare Johnson, owner of the film production company Mama Simba Films, based in Los Angeles. She recently finished directing and producing a feature film she wrote called Stealing Roses, a comedy/drama about a couple struggling in a health care crisis. The film stars actors John Heard and Cindy Williams and is to be released ilater this year. Joining Johnson is producer Steve Beswick of POV Pictures, also based in Los Angeles.. Beswick is known for his work on the films The Hole, Starship Troopers 3, and Legion.

“We are extremely pleased to be the first filmmakers to cover such an amazing and thrilling American Indian art form and bring it into the living rooms and theaters of the American people.” said Beswick. “We will be employing local talent and featuring new faces on the big screen who are from the reservations in and near the states of New Mexico, South Dakota and Montana.”

The fancy dance is a most vibrant and crowd-pleasing category, featuring remarkably athletic and agile dancers who not only keep perfect beat but also can stop with the drum at anytime the singers decide to stop the beat. Three or more consecutive songs, lasting four minutes in length, are often sung for the fancy dancers so that selected judges can decide which order to place the winners based upon their talent, performance and overall dance aura.

In the film, an indigenous young man and his adopted non-Indian, Caucasian brother leave their Indian reservation and travel the country trying to make money for college as they compete in the summer pow wow dance competitions. On the road they confront relationships, bigotry, love and the different paths each must take.The film will also highlight reservation basketball (“rez ball”), as the two play and attend various games during their travels.

The producers are excited to be working with an expert and primary consultant on pow wows, Norman Roach, who hails from the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.

Roach was a fancy dance champion as a junior boy (ages 7-12), a teen (ages 13-17), and as an adult. He was a dancer and choreographer for years with the American Indian Dance Theater group that traveled the United States and numerous foreign countries sharing the various dances of Native nations. Roach was featured in the PBS Dance in America series and also in the American Indian Dance Theater production of Finding the Circle.

“I am honored to provide consultation for the making of this important film that will reveal to the citizens of the United States what magnificent talent and culture exists just outside their doors upon this Great Turtle Island.” said Roach, who is also an accomplished flute player and hoop dancer.

Norman Roach
Norman Roach

 

Roach is also known for his successful three-year direction of the only major pow wow to be held within the sacred Black Hills, the heart and center of the Lakota Nation and peoples. The NAHA Pow Wow brought in many champion dancers and drums to gorunds just south of Rapid City, South Dakota.  Roach was also instrumental in the founding of the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, the largest in North America held each year in April in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Roach is joined as a consultant by Robert “Tree” Cody, an enrolled member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community from Arizona, currently residing in Big Bear, California. Tree, given the name due to his 6′ 10” frame, is an expert flute player, winning Grammy award nominations and Native American Music Awards during his career. Cody has been a pow wow dancer since 1958 in fancy (believed to be the world’s tallest fancy dancer) and other categories.

Robert "Tree" Cody, master Native American flute player
Robert “Tree” Cody, master Native American flute player

 

Cody was featured playing his flute in an episode of the PBS series Reading Rainbow, entitled “The Gift of the Sacred Dog,” which was based on the book by Paul Goble. It was filmed at Montana’s Crow Reservation on June 17, 1983. He has released many albums with Canyon Records and has toured throughout the Americas, Europe, and East Asia. He performed the traditional carved wooden flute on several tracks of The Rippingtons’s 1999 album Topaz. His resume also includes a performance with Xavier Quijas Yxayotl, a master of Mayan and Aztec music, for the 2000 album Crossroads. Cody is also an excellent singer and pow-wow drummer. Both he and Roach have been on the pow wow “trail” since the late 1950s.

“Mr. Roach and Mr. Cody are essential for the success of this production.” said Johnson. “With their knowledge and expertise the story to be portrayed will undoubtedly be most authentic and appropriate, sharing on the screen such a rich and beautiful way of life.”

To learn more about the Dance Hard film project, click here.

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/03/17/feature-film-about-life-pow-wow-fancy-dancer-begins-filming-summer-148216