THINGS TO DO THIS MONTH (AND EVERY MONTH) Part II
Recognize What Native Land You Are On
Read Indigenous Literature (view these lists of suggestions, and explore)
“Prior to 1968, only nine novels by Native American authors had been published in the US and Canada. But now Indigenous voices have started reaching a far larger audience. Social changes and repositioning around traditional cultural practice seem to have catalyzed waves of Indigenous writing, as Native American writers grapple with the challenges of increasing urbanization and integration into mainstream America, as well as an awareness of the strength and gravitational pull of community. A new generation of Native voices is confronting important questions of identity and the distinctive realities of Native culture.”
· https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/the-read-down/must-read-books-by-indigenous-authors/…
· https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g38066444/native-american-books/
· https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/native-american-authors
· https://www.powells.com/post/lists/new-releases-for-native-american-heritage-month-2023·
Participate in Indigenous Cultural Events (see below)
Explore Indigenous Cuisine (browse online)
STREAMING
Killers of the Flower Moon
Available for streaming by subscription on AppleTV+ in December. Actual date TBA.
PBS
You can stream these films and shows on PBS.org or on the PBS App. At their PBS webpages you can link to each film’s trailer or full episode, production credits, and specific information and brief videos about its making and its story. Some will remain online, some will no longer be streaming or broadcast after early December. Check each title’s webpage to view its trailer and/or the full episode.
Little Bird In 1968, five-year-old Bezhig Little Bird was forcibly removed from Long Pine Reserve and adopted into a Jewish family in Montreal, and renamed Esther Rosenblum. Eighteen years later, she embarks on a journey to unravel her history. Through this epic journey of connection and self-discovery, Bezhig Little Bird begins to find her lost family and put the pieces of her fragmented past back together.
The American Buffalo For untold generations, America’s national mammal sustained the lives of Native people, whose cultures were intertwined with the animal. Newcomers to the continent bring a different view of the natural world, and the buffalo are driven to the brink of extinction. In English audio with captions, Spanish audio with captions, and Descriptive Audio.
Homecoming Juliana Brannum chronicles the efforts of those working to rebuild Native American communities’ enduring relationship to the buffalo. At the turn of the last century, Yellowstone National Park helped to save the nation’s buffalo population from extinction. Now, in the 21st century, their Bison Conservation and Transfer Program is supporting buffalo restoration to the Plains and to the Indigenous people whose lives, spiritually and physically, were inextricably linked to the bison for thousands of years.
Craft in America A series airing and/or streaming, for 14 seasons on PBS and PBS.org. The episodes feature around 4 artists or creative projects, often including Native American creators. Examples are Navajo/Hopi master jeweler Barbara Teller Ornelas (Navajo) in “Teachers,” Jesse Monongya (Navajo, Hopi) in “Jewelry”, Biskakone Greg Johnson (Anishnaabe) in “Home” and Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit, Unangax) in “Storytellers.”
“Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Culture” (Next at the Kennedy Center)
In partnership with electronic music pioneers The Halluci Nation, R&B artist Martha Redbone, and performance artist Ty Defoe, The Kennedy Center explores the impact and evolution of indigenous performing arts cultures.
“Friends and Strangers” (Art21/Art in the 21st Century) Four contemporary artists, including Cannupa Hanska Lugar (Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, Lakota) and Miranda July, look inside and outside their immediate circles to find emotional connections and build community. This film showcases playful and poignant sculptures, performances, and more.
“New Worlds” Native innovators lead a revolution in music, building, and space exploration. From the surface of Mars to the New York City hip hop scene to the Pine Ridge Reservation, Native traditions are transforming life on Earth and other worlds.
“Language is Life” Celebrate the power of Native languages and the inspirational people who are saving them. From secret recordings to “Star Wars” films dubbed in Navajo, follow the revolutionary steps transforming Native America.
“Women Rule” Native women are leading, innovating, and inspiring in the arts, politics, and protecting the planet. Native America explores the diverse ways they carry forward deep traditions to better their communities, their lands, and the world.
“Warrior Spirit” Across Native America, warrior traditions support incredible athletes and connect people to combat, games, and glory. Celebrate and honor the men and women who live and breathe this legacy today.
Native Ball: Legacy of a Trailblazer – Trailer Only Each year in the U.S., nearly 5,000 high-school girls’ basketball players earn a full-ride Division I scholarship. In 1992, only one was Native American: Blackfeet Nation’s Malia Kipp. Living in two worlds presented challenges, but Kipp carried the burden with grace and grit. Described by her chief as “a warrior,” she blazed a heroic and inspiring trail for other Native girls to follow.
Town Destroyer (America ReFramed) This documentary probes a passionate dispute over historic murals at a public high school depicting the life of George Washington: slaveowner, General, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called “town destroyer.” The controversy becomes a touchstone for a national debate over public art and historic memory in a time of racial reckoning.
Generations Stolen – streaming with local PBS Passport. Native American communities are grappling with the fallout of government policies which separated Native children from their families and stripped them of their culture – first at boarding schools, and later in white adoptive and foster homes. June 15, 2023, the Supreme Court rejected challenges to ICWA, a victory for Native communities working to overcome generations of trauma.
ATTLA (Independent Lens) – until 12/16/23 streaming with PBS Passport. ATTLA tells the gripping story of George Attla, a charismatic Alaska Native dogsled racer who, with one good leg and fierce determination, became a legendary sports hero in Northern communities around the world.
FILM SCREENINGS AND FESTIVALS
Anchorage International Film Festival
Dec 1-9. Tickets. In-person in Anchorage, Alaska
Feature film
One With The Whale Documentary feature. US. Peter Chelkowski, Jim Wickens. Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence, a remote island in the Bering Sea. So when Chris Apassingok becomes the youngest person to ever harpoon a whale for his Alaskan village, his mother proudly shares the news on Facebook. To her surprise, thousands of keyboard activists brutally attack Chris without fully understanding the scope of his accomplishment. One With The Whale is a heartwarming yet thrilling story of one family’s struggle to rebuild their shattered identities and regain a new foothold in both the ancient and modern world.
Short films
A Piece of Myself Documentary. US. Nidhi Kumar, Audrey Shuppert, Vivienne Ayres. Athabascan, Athna and Paiute, and Yupik artists find pride in their work and indigenous identities.
Ellavut Cimirtuq (Our World Is Changing) Documentary. US. As an archeological team digs to save cultural artifacts from rising sea levels in her coastal village, a Yupik filmmaker explores her tribe’s relationship with its language, subsistence hunting and gathering practices and cultural traditions in Alaska.
Indigenous Resistance: Now and Then Documentary. US. ”Wáats”asdíyei Joe Yates. After going through statehood, blood quantum, ANCSA, boarding schools, stripping our language and dance away, and all that has done to Alaska Natives’ mental health, the filmmaker takes this narrative to show how resilient Alaska Native people are.
NIGIQTUQ ᓂᒋᖅᑐᖅ Narrative. US. Lindsay McIntyre. Having left her Arctic home with her mother, young Marguerite must negotiate the unspoken pressures of a new life in the South. When an extraordinary letter arrives from home, Marguerite discovers what’s really expected of her. Based on a true story.
School of Fish Documentary. US. Oliver Sutro, Colin Arisman. Indigenous people and salmon have been intertwined for thousands of years in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Can the next generation defend the most prolific salmon run left on earth
Wallowing Bull Documentary. US. Dan Lior. Christian Wallowing Bull,
Indigenous singer-songwriter, explores the cultural significance of the American bison, and works to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous perspectives.
Who She Is Documentary. US. Jordan Dresser, Sophie Barksdale. The stories of four individual women caught in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) epidemic in the US.
African Diaspora International Film Festival
Nov 24-Dec 10. Hybrid. Tickets. In-person in New York City. Online in US, Canada, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands (US).
In-person on Dec 1 and online through Dec 10.
The Tracker Narrative feature. Australia. Rolf de Heer. The year is 1922 and The Tracker (David Gulpilil) has the job of pursuing The Fugitive–an aborigine who is suspected of murdering a white woman–as he leads three mounted policemen: The Fanatic, The Follower, and also The Veteran across the outback.
Feature films. In-person only
Farewell, Savage Documentary. Colombia. Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento. The filmmaker, himself a descendant of an almost extinct indigenous Colombian community, went to meet the Cácuas, to talk about their feelings, their loves, their loneliness. In doing so, he reconnects with his own Indigenousness.
Gulpilil: One Red Blood Documentary. Australia. Darlene Johnson (Dunghutti). Legendary Aboriginal actor and Australian icon David Gulpilil (c.1964-2022) lived a life of dueling lifestyles, with his jet-setting movie star life on a completely different plane from his life as an Aboriginal village elder, as caught in this biographical documentary from 2003.
I am Berta/Berta Yo Soy Documentary. Honduras. Katia Lara. Hours before her assassination, Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres wrote down the names of the corrupt interests aiming to kill her. Using these clues, the documentary follows a tenacious Honduran journalist and a renowned international lawyer as they put together the puzzle pieces to help Berta solve her own murder. Q&A with director after the screenings
LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears Documentary. Sāmoa. Anna Marbrook. The redemptive tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope’s final years. Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of Sāmoa. The result is a poignant yet tender story of a family’s commitment to becoming whole again.
White Lies Narrative. New Zealand/Aotearoa. Dana Rotberg. Based on a novel by Whale Rider writer Witi Ihimaera, this intense drama tackles moral dilemmas, exploring the nature of identity, societal attitudes to the roles of women and the tension between Western and traditional Maori medicine. Paraiti (Whirimako Black), healer and midwife of her rural Maori people is approached by Maraea, who seeks her knowledge to help in order to hide a secret which could destroy the standing of a wealthy woman in European settler society.
Survival of Kindness Narrative. Australia. Rolf de Heer. “As in his last film Charlie’s Country, the tragic hero of Rolf de Heer’s new work clearly asks: “What is left of our humanity?” This time the hero is a woman, portrayed with an unforgettable mix of bravery and weariness by Mwajemi Hussein. The Dutch-Australian filmmaker’s searing moral fable subverts our expectations by playing with a variety of genres, but confirms his indisputable understanding of the burden endured by ethnic minorities in a white man’s world…Poised between poetry and despair, BlackWoman’s thought-provoking story gradually gives shape to the most moving of exploits: the will to resist.” ~ Berlinale. Q&A with lead actress Mwajemi Hussein after the screening followed by VIP reception on Dec 1
National Gallery of Art
Dec 3 and Dec 17. Free. In-person in Washington, DC
Sun Dec 3 “Sky Hopinka: Wandering Translations, Poems, and Film”Screenings and a conversation with Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk, Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians). For description and registration, see below.
Sun Dec 17 Ever Deadly Feature documentary. Canada. Tanya Tagaq, Chelsea McMullen. Throughout her ground-breaking career, Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq has always had an intimate relationship with the Nuna—the Land—a living, breathing organism present in her improvised performances. Hers is a voice that, according to the New York Times, “demands full attention, whether she’s whispering in her softest register or howling at the sky.” Ever Deadly weaves together intimate concert footage of Tagaq alongside moving personal reflections, stunning sequences filmed in Nunavut, and hand-drawn animation by Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona. Part of NGA’s Celestial Voices on Film series.
TALKING ABOUT
National Gallery of Art
2023 Annual Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture
“Sky Hopinka: Wandering Translations, Poems, and Film”
Dec 3. Free with advanced registration. In-person in Washington, DC
Screenings and a conversation with Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk, Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), a New York based artist and poet. His film, video, photography, and text work center personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape. Hopinka’s work foregrounds designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non-fiction forms of media. Hopinka will discuss his current projects, works in progress, and forms of collaboration, including with the COUSIN Collective, a collective supporting Indigenous artists dedicated to expanding the form of film. Followed by a screening of short titles by Hopinka, including Sunflower SeigeEngine (2022) and Mnemonics of Shape and Reason (2021). This is the final program in the “Imagining Indigenous Cinema: New Voices, New Visions” film series, co-curated by Colleen Thurston (Choctaw) and Anpa’o Locke(Hunkpapa Lakota, Ahtna Dené).
Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Miss Chief Presents Her Memoir: Kent Monkman and Gisele Gordon in Conversation with Patricia Norby”
Fri, Dec 15. Free with ticketed admission to museum. Space is limited and dvance registration recommended. In-person in New York City
An unmissable event for anyone interested in an art-drenched, gloriously queer, Indigenous look at the “true” history of Turtle Island/North America, with a special appearance by Miss Chief Eagle Testikle.
Join celebrated artist Kent Monkman (Cree) and his longtime collaborator Gisèle Gordon as they discuss their new work The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island. The genre-defying book, based on Monkman’s paintings, tells a story of the land called North America that reframes the narrative to be one of Indigenous resilience, which reshapes our shared understanding and lights the path ahead.
The evening includes a reading with Miss Chief, followed by a conversation with Monkman, Gordon, and Met Curator Patricia Norby (Purépecha).
Center for Earth Ethics
“Freedom to Be: Perspectives on the 2022 UN Report on Indigenous Peoples and the Concept of Freedom of Religion or Belief”
Dec 6, 3:00-4:30 pm ET. Free. Online
A conversation about the intersection of Indigenous issues, the concept of freedom of religion or belief, and the climate crisis. This virtual discussion will feature Indigenous voices who will explore how international Indigenous communities are affected by the same extractionist industries, domination mindset, and land removal policies that drive climate change. Confirmed speakers include Pavel Sulyandziga of the Udege people in Russia, Laulani Teale of the Kanaka Maoli people in Hawai’i, and Åsa Larsson Blind of the Sámi Peoples in Sweden. Roberto Múkaro Borrero, strategic advisor to CEE, will moderate.
CREATIVITY
THEATER, EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS
The Public Theater
Manahatta
Nov 16-Dec 17. Tickets. In-person in New York City
Manahatta Written by Mary Kathryn Nagle (Cherokee). Directed by Laurie Woolery. A gripping journey from the fur trade of the 1600s to the stock trade of today, Manahatta tells the story of Jane Snake, a brilliant young Native woman with a Stanford MBA. Jane reconnects with her ancestral Lenape homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from Oklahoma to New York for a banking job just before the 2008 financial meltdown. Jane’s struggle to reconcile her new life with the expectations and traditions of her family and Nation are powerfully interwoven with the heartbreaking history of the Delaware Nation’s expulsion from their land. Both old and new Manahatta converge in a lesson about the dangers of living in a society where there’s no such thing as enough. See “Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Play about the Lenape Comes Home”by Alexis Soloski in New York Times, Nov 29, 2023.
Sat Dec 9 at 1:30 pm. a Community Performance is being offered for Native and Indigenous community members. Use the code on the play’s performance schedule to obtain free tickets.
First Americans Museum
“Anita Fields: WAYBACK”
Ongoing. Tickets. In-person in Oklahoma City
This installation by artist Anita Fields (Osage) consisting of outdoor platforms treated with Osage ribbonwork designs, invites visitors to gather, visit, and contemplate the difficult histories and effects of Indigenous people’s removal from their ancestral homelands
Sun Dec 10Anita Fields will lead a conversation on the installation. Reservations recommended.
Andrew Smith Gallery Arizona
“Matakyuma: Photography by Duwawisioma (Victor Masayesva, Jr.)
Opening on Dec 2 in Tucson, Arizona
Hopi photographer and filmmaker Duwawisioma (Victor Masayesva Jr) continues a lifelong quest to understand “existence” and “being” in terms of Hopi ancestral traditions in the modern world. In this exhibition he focuses on the universal ideas engendered in the Hopi lunar agricultural cycle, combining cosmology, the emergence of the Hopi, animating the personalities of place, and elements of nature, death that leads to regeneration, and cycles of creation and destruction.
SAAM/Smithsonian American Art Museum
“Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea”
July 28, 2023-Jan 14, 2024. Free. In-person in Washington, DC
The exhibition examines the perspectives of 48 of modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, and go beyond the familiar accounts of European settlers and bring to light lived histories and identities that are essential to a truthful history. The show highlights many voices—including artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ — who stake a claim in the American West. Native artists include Ka’ila Farrell-Smith (Klamath Modoc), Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke/Crow), Fritz Scholder (La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians), Awa Tsireh/Alfonso Roybal (San Ildefonso Pueblo) and Marie Watt (Seneca).
The artwork is from the permanent collections of SAAM and four partner museums located in some of the fastest-growing cities and states in the western region of the United States. It is the culmination of a multi-year, joint curatorial initiative made possible by the Art Bridges Foundation.
National Gallery of Art
“The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans”
Sept 22, 2023-Jan 15, 2024. Free. In-person in Washington, DC.
Curated by artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), this exhibition brings together works by an intergenerational group of nearly 50 living Native artists practicing across the United States. Their powerful expressions reflect the diversity of Native American individual, regional, and cultural identities. At the same time, these works share a worldview informed by thousands of years of reverence, study, and concern for the land. (In early November artists Nicholas Galanin and Merritt Johnson requested that their joint sculpture be removed as a protest against US’ actions to support Israel during the Israel/Gaza conflict.)
