“Culture, Tradition, Technology” is School’s Innovative Motto

left to right: “The People vs Mary Moses “ cast, along with  Francis Perry – center – who was diagnosed at age 19 with FAS; his story was  the inspiration of a play that won 6 awards at the New Brunswick  Drama Festival. Third and fourth graders during a technology class.

One of the more remote areas of Canada, the Miramichi region in northeastern New Brunswick, bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Atlantic Coast, is unexpectedly also home to one of the country’s most technologically advanced schools, which is winning major awards and attention from educators throughout the world for its innovative curriculum and impressive academic results.

The Eel Ground First Nation School, which serves a Micmac community of some 800 people, was launched in 1978 but has really blossomed in the past decade under principal Peter MacDonald. Here the students learn their traditional language, culture and history with the guidance of computer software; study math, reading and writing with Smartboards (interactive “whiteboards” that replace blackboards); use digital microscopes in science courses; compose music and create short films that they post on the school’s Web site; and conduct long-distance learning and conferences with other schools via video feeds and live webcasts. In 2001, its students created a Web site on its community leaders that took the silver prize in a competition involving 500,000 students from 70 countries.

All this would be remarkable for a college or high school, but Eel Ground is a K–8 grade school.

The school also has taken a leadership role in addressing major social and health issues facing Canada’s First Nations youth, including suicide and alcohol and drug abuse. A key component in these efforts has involved the school’s acclaimed Drama Club. Teacher John Bosma wrote two plays on these topics that the students produced. They were subsequently made into student-produced movies and have been seen across Canada, leading to the school being presented a Kaiser Foundational National Award of Excellence for outstanding service in reducing substance abuse.

When MacDonald assumed control of the school in 1987, the student base was 39. Now it is nearly 100. “A lot of schools in the First Nations communities have lost half their population to the provincial schools,” he relates. “We have the problems now where parents from the city want their kids to come here…. As long as you tell the students the work involves a computer, they’ll do the work…. Today it’s not really what you know; it’s understanding how to get what you need to know. And, the kids are so busy doing things there’s no time for negative thoughts.”

Details:
eelgroundschool.ca or 506/627-4615


Rooms with a View

A new day is dawning on the vast Navajo Reservation as the tribe and a private partner prepare to open the first hotel within a Navajo Tribal Park. The View Hotel, overlooking stunning, spectacular and remote Monument Valley, opens its doors in September, with a grand opening scheduled for October.

The hotel has 95 guestrooms, including three suites, with 90 rooms having private balconies looking east toward the iconic Mittens—the hand-shaped stone monoliths rising some 1,000 feet off the red sandstone desert floor. It is located next to the existing Monument Valley Visitor Center.

ArtsCo, a Navajo family endeavor led by Armanda Ortega, granddaughter of famed Indian arts trader Armand Ortega, is developing the venture. The company has successfully run the visitor center’s trading post and restaurant for the past five years. ArtsCo will provide the Navajo Nation with a percentage of its gross receipts and all sales taxes, and the hotel has been built almost entirely by Native contractors and workers. The hotel and visitor center will also provide about 100 full- and part-time jobs when fully operational.

Monument Valley is located in northeastern Arizona, straddling the border with Utah. It has served as the backdrop for many famous films, from John Ford’s Stagecoach to Forrest Gump. The closest town is Kayenta, and the only other nearby accommodation is the historic Goulding’s Lodge, located some five miles from the park entrance, so the prospects for the new hotel seem promising.

Hotel details: monumentvalleyview.com
Park details: navajonationparks.org


Lines

Santa Fe will serve as the host city for the first UNESCO International Conference on Creative Tourism, being held Sept. 28–Oct. 2, which will include activities focused on American Indian art and culture, presentations by Native speakers and artists, studio visits and more. Details: santafecreativetourism.org … On May 24, 15 rare objects and artworks were stolen from the world-famous University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, but on June 10 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced 13 objects had been recovered; an argillite pipe and an eagle brooch, both by famed artist Bill Reid (Haida), remain missing ... The nonprofit American Indian Association of Illinois (773/550-9600), based in Chicago, is busy operating the American Indian Heritage Center of Illinois, which includes the Black Hawk Performance Company (led by Zeke Peynetsa of Zuni Pueblo), a language academy, research library and Indian artist’s registry.


The Renaissance Man

Call him a renaissance man. Steven Wounded Deer Alvarez (Mescalero Apache/Yaqui/Athabascan) is a stage actor, percussionist, vocalist, film and stage producer, music educator and arts administrator who is currently serving as the Director of Cultural Education and Strategic Initiatives for the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) in Anchorage. Raised in a multi-ethnic military family that moved to several foreign countries, he is at home in the world at large and brings his global perspective to all his endeavors.

Working as a musician since age 16, Alvarez currently performs with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Anchorage Opera, the Anchorage Concert Chorus and contemporary bands Medicine Dream and Pamyua. He recently co-founded Theatre Artists United, an Anchorage-based theater company, where he has directed a production of Hair. His innovative theater piece Connections, which fuses live storytelling with film and live music, debuted at the National Museum of the American Indian and has been presented at numerous other locales.

In October, Alvarez will be directing ANHC’s fifth annual World Music Festival, which he launched; directing the music for the premiere of ECHOES (see “Happening,” this issue); and musically directing and playing the lead role of Che in Evita. In November, he will perform as the percussionist in NMAI’s Classical Native Series with the relatively new trio 3 Sides (along with Tara-Louise Montour and Dawn Avery) and will oversee ANHC’s seventh annual InterTribal Gathering—which he also created.

Details: A clip from Connections can be seen at thecharlesagency.com


Shards

In an ongoing campaign to improve its funding base, the Santa Fe Indian Market has secured a major sponsor, Pojoaque Pueblo’s Buffalo Thunder Resort (see March/April 08 issue, p. 13). The three-year agreement is worth tens of thousands of dollars. Present for the May announcement were Pojoaque Governor George Rivera, Tim Booth of Hilton Hotels (the resort’s hotel partner) and SWAIA Executive Director Bruce Bernstein. The resort opens in August.

Members of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes have been spotted and photographed from the air near the Brazil-Peru border on the Envira River. The flight and photos were taken to prove that the tribe exists and is being threatened by uncontrolled illegal logging operations. Watch Survival International’s short film Uncontacted Tribes at http://list-manage.com/track/click?u=b14580b05b832fb959c4ee444&id=9f2cada6d5&e=HbNtptFCoy.

In May, the Institute of American Indian Arts teamed up with ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox to launch the American Indian National Center for Television & Film under executive director Jhane Myers-NoiseCat (Comanche/Blackfeet — see cover July/Aug. 08 issue). “The center will serve as a bridge between Native American talent and opportunities in the entertainment industry, from independent filmmakers to editors, screenwriters and actors,” noted IAIA President Dr. Robert Martin. It is based in Los Angeles. Details: www.iaia.edu/ainctf.

A new book with the most comprehensive collection of biographies of Hopi katsina carvers ever compiled has been released by Gregory Schaaf (Cherokee) and his wife Angie Yan Schaaf. The book, titled Hopi Katsina: 1600 Artist Biographies 1840 to the Present, is the seventh is the couple’s ambitious 20-volume American Indian Art Series from the Center for Indigenous Arts & Cultures in Santa Fe. The duo is now working on a volume that will contain 2,200 profiles of artists who have appeared at the Santa Fe Indian Market from 1922 to the present.

In August, Joy Harjo released a new CD of original music, Through the Milky Way on a Fast Horse (Fast Horse Recordings), and appeared on August 21 in an evening concert at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe. In May, her song “Equinox” took the award for Best Native Contemporary Song at the New Mexico Music Awards, and her play Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light was selected in June for development by the Autry National Center’s Native Voices program.

A T-shirt honoring all American Indian Code Talkers has been released by Hopi artist Buddy Tubinaghtewa and Wil Danesi of the nonprofit Hopi Pu’tavi Project. The duo set out to raise awareness that at least 24 tribes—in addition to the famous Navajo Code Talkers—contributed men to the secret program in World War II.


Passages

Author and teacher Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna Pueblo/Métis) (see Nov./Dec. 2005 issue) passed away in May. Her many books in various genres include Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat; The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions; Medicine Drum; Grandmother of the Light: A Medicine Woman’s Source Book, and eight books of poetry. She was the recipient of many major writing awards and also is credited with launching the academic field of American Indian Literary Studies. She was 69.

The granddaughter of Crow medicine woman Pretty Shield, tribal historian, educator, herbalist and fountain of traditional knowledge Alma Hogan Snell (Crow), passed away on May 5 in Billings, Montana. She also wrote two books, Grandmother’s Grandchild: My Crow Indian Life and A Taste of Heritage. She was 85.
    
Longtime Miami Nation of Oklahoma Chief Floyd Ernest Leonard passed on March 8. He was 82. A consummate political veteran, he served as tribal chief for 27 years.
    
Potter Inez Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), part of an extended family of outstanding clay artists that includes Virgil Ortiz and Lisa Holt, passed away in early June.
    
Merida Red Star Miller (Crow) perished in an auto accident in Montana in May. The beautiful, vivacious and charming 29-year-old daughter of renowned artist Kevin Red Star was managing her father’s gallery, sales, exhibitions and other business affairs at the time of her death. She was also poised to become the general manager of Legends Santa Fe. She is survived by her seven-year-old son, Mason Christopher Miller. A memorial will be held for her in Santa Fe on Sept. 14 at 2 p.m. Details: 505/983-5639 or legendssantafe.com. Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at kevinredstar.com or Kevin Red Star Gallery, P.O. Box 269 Roberts, MT 59070.


Honoring

The National Endowment for the Arts has singled out drummaker and singer Horace P. Axtell (Nez Perce) and the Oneida Singers of Wisconsin for National Heritage Fellowships, the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts.

Frank Big Bear (Chippewa) has won a $100,000 Enduring Vision Award from the Bush Foundation for his intricate and mesmerizing Prismacolor pencil works, and Jim Denomie (Chippewa) has been named a 2008 Bush Artist Fellow (one of 15 selected out of 485 applicants) for his off-the-wall, childlike paintings.
    
Eric Schweig (Inuit), best known as an actor (Last of the Mohicans, The Missing, Tom and Huck, etc.) has received an honorary doctorate degree in education from Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario. Schweig is also an accomplished maskmaker, in the Inuit tradition, and is very active in speaking and outreach programs for Native youth.
    
The National Museum of the American Indian has selected 13 artists for its new Visual and Expressive Arts Grants Program. Among those receiving grants were painter Joe Feddersen (Colville), for a 112-page exhibition catalog; Tania Willard (Shuswap) for site-specific work at Stanley Park in Vancouver; storyteller Jack Dalton (Yup’ik) and dancer and singer Stephen Blanchett (Yup’ik) for production of an original dance performance; playwright Rhiana Yazzie (Navajo); and visual artist Carolyn Anderson (Navajo), choreographer Emily Johnson (Yup’ik) and Pangea World Theater dramaturge Meena Natarajan to produce a play titled Ady.
    
High-school student Alexandre Jamon (Zuni Pueblo) was featured in a spring documentary program on the Sundance Channel’s series Big Ideas for a Small Planet. The piece focused on the garden and organic farming program he created on the Twin Buttes High School campus in western New Mexico.
    
Actor, playwright, poet, musician and spoken-word performance artist Cochise Anderson (Chickasaw/Choctaw); bead artist, dancer and law student Dallin Maybee (Seneca); dancer and law student Naomi Bebo (Menominee/Ho-Chunk); and dancer Leon Thompson (Yakama/Nez Perce) appeared at the Dreaming Festival in Australia in June.
    
Ron Senungetuk (Inupiaq), a visual artist, sculptor, metalsmith, curator, scholar and former professor, has received a $25,000 award from the Rasmuson Foundation of Alaska. In 1960, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and in 1979 an Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts.
    
The Purchase Award at the 2008 Native Treasures gathering in Santa Fe went to Michael “NaNa Ping” Garcia (Pascua Yaqui) for an outstanding jewelry piece. Garcia also recently completed his fourth business trip in a year and half to Japan and Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, where he is carving out a place for himself in the new global arts market.
    
The New England Foundation for the Arts selected 11 institutions and artists for its Winter 2008 Native Arts New England grant program. Among those receiving awards were the Aquinnah Cultural Center of Massachusetts, birchbark artisan David Moses Bridges (Passamaquoddy) (see May/June 08 issue), Robert Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag) for construction of two traditional New England Indian wetus (dwellings), contemporary stone sculptor Tim Shay (Penobscot/Maliseet), and the Tomaquag Museum of Narragansett, Rhode Island.