ICT is working to shape the future of journalism and stay connected with readers like you. A crucial part of that effort is understanding our audience. Share your perspective in a brief survey for a chance to win prizes.
Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
The latest: The Seminole Tribal Fair expands, a TV episode explores the Heard Museum, and a pioneering artist exhibit opens in New York
FILM: Native Reel Film Festival highlight of fair, powwow
The Seminole Tribal Fair & Powwow is rolling out the patchwork carpet at the Seminole’s world-class Hard Rock Guitar Hotel on Feb. 8-10 in Hollywood, Florida, for a jampacked weekend of Native dance, film, art, music and vendors.
The powwow will host thousands of dancers from all over the country, and other events will feature local art displayed in spacious ballrooms, music from top entertainers, and hundreds of vendors with a rainbow of Seminole and Miccosukee patchwork clothing, beaded jewelry and crafts.
SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. CONTRIBUTE TODAY.
Contests for drum singing, a Battle of the Guards, and clothing contests will offer thousands of dollars in prizes.
One of the highlights of the annual event is the Native Reel Film Festival, which will be expanding with a networking night on Feb. 8 at the nearby Seminole Okalee Indian Village with films, food, actors and directors.
This year, screenings will include the films “Fancy Dance” with Lily Gladstone, and the comedy, “Hey Viktor,” directed by Cody Lightning, Cree, a former child actor who also appears in the film. The director of “Fancy Dance,” Erica Tremblay, Seneca-Cayuga, will be honored with the inaugural Jaya Award later this month at the 14th annual Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City.
Other films slated for the weekend at the Guitar Hotel are “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World,” “Boil Alert,” “Frybread Face and Me,” and the short films, “Borders,” and “Ode to Leviticus.”
Several Indigenous celebrities will be there for meet-and-greets, including Charley Hogan, Navajo; Steven Paul Judd, Kiowa; Adam Conte, Diné; and Kenneth Shirley, Diné. Actor Zahn McClarnon, Hunkpapa, and Cody Lightning, Cree, may be appearing as well. A special award will be given to Pat Vegas, Yaqui/Shoshone, of Redbone.
Pulling all this together is film lover Everett Osceola, the Seminole’s cultural ambassador, who also has the unique jobs of coaching alligator wrestlers and producing films.
TV: Museums, authors in spotlight
A new series, “Visions of America: All Stories, All People, All Places,” premiered Jan. 24 with the episode, “Voices from the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Stories of First Americans,” featuring Native, tribal and First American stories.
The Heard visit serves as a lead-in for the half-hour digital documentary spanning topics that include tribal sovereignty and the vital role and contributions of Natives to the American story.
In the episode, Crosby Kemper, the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, tours the Heard Museum with its director/CEO, David Roche, to discuss the museum’s role as a central asset in telling and preserving American Indian history and culture.
Crosby also speaks with Walter Echo-Hawk, Pawnee, a Native attorney, tribal judge, author, activist, and law professor, and with Philip J. Deloria, Dakota, a history professor at Harvard University. They talk about Indigenous knowledge and traditions, tribal engagement, the unique relationship of tribes to history and their contributions to the United States.
A multi-platform national initiative partnership between PBS Books and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, the program was launched in 2023 as part of #America250, commemorating the upcoming U.S. semiquincentennial.
Episodes are available for viewing on YouTube. Each episode explores stories and histories that have contributed to contemporary America.
ART: Cherokee artist’s hard-edge works
One of the founders of the hard-edge style of minimal, abstract art, Leon Polk Smith, Cherokee, found his style in New York City.
Now a new exhibit, “Leon Polk Smith: 1940–1961,” shows his unusual, dynamic body of work at Lisson Gallery in New York. The exhibit opened Jan. 11 and runs through Feb. 17.
Smith was born in Indian Territory in an area that is now Chickasha, Oklahoma, but he rejected the farm life to move to New York City in the 1940s to pursue his passion as an educator.
New York’s art world fueled his exploration of Cubism, Surrealism, and Expressionism in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His deep connection to the landscape of Oklahoma and New Mexico played a pivotal role in shaping his sense of color and geometry. Drawing inspiration from Native American craft, particularly ribbon work, his devotion to geometric patterning persisted throughout his career.
The exhibit showcases key paintings, studies, drawings, and maquettes that shaped Smith’s practice. Influenced by De Stijl painters, Piet Mondrian, and the vibrant colors of Native crafts, Smith’s work laid the foundation for his artistic legacy.
He died Dec. 4, 1996, at age 90.
Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute $5 or $10 today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter.