2013 Living Earth Festival headlines the museum's summer webcast season

The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C., museum is hosting many excellent public programs this summer for audiences of all ages and a wide range of interests. Here is a schedule of upcoming programs available on the Internet via webcast. 

Live webcasts can be accessed though the NMAI webcast page.

Not free during a program you'd like to see? Wish you had seen an earlier program? Most webcasts are archived on the NMAI YouTube Channel within a few days of the event.

Please note: Times for live performances and webcasts are given as Eastern Daylight Time.

2013 LIVING EARTH FESTIVAL 
July 19 through 21

The museum’s annual Living Earth Festival celebrates Native contributions to protecting the environment, promoting sustainability, and using indigenous plants to improve health and nutrition. Such a celebration entails much fun with art, music, dance, and cooking, as well as reports from Indian County on how Native peoples are developing solutions to protect public health and the environment.

On Friday, July 19, at 1 pm and 2 pm, the museum will webcast a fun hands-on activity for children of all ages from the imagiNATIONS Activity Center.  Muscogee Creek sculptor Lisan Tiger Blair will lead a workshop in creating animal and human forms from clay and other materials.

Saturday, July 20, will be filled with music and dance. Enjoy these performances and mini-concerts broadcast from the Potomac Atrium:

11:15 AM | Ho`omau I Ka Wai Ola O Hawai`i, Hawaiian music and dance

Noon | Quetzal Guerrero, virtuoso violin and vocals

12:30 PM | She King (Six Nations Reserve), contemporary rock out of Toronto

1 PM | Pokagon Drum and Dance Troupe (Potawatomi), traditional and fancy dancing performed at many powwows throughout the United States

2 PM | Ozomatli, urban–Latin fusion from Los Angeles

 

Tribal ecoAmbassadors at work: A Northwest Indian College project studying biotoxins in fish. Photo courtesy of the EPA

Saturday from 2:30 to 4 PM, the webcast will move to the Rasmuson Theater to present the Living Earth Symposium: Tribal ecoAmbassadors.  Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists, tribal college and university professors, and Native students are conducting projects that help community residents become part of an environmentally conscious future. Learn how these Tribal ecoAmbassadors are developing innovative and locally relevant solutions to protect public healthand the environment—from creating carbon-negative and sustainable building materials to participatory air quality monitoring to exploring the impacts mercury and other toxics have on human health. 

Saturday from 5 to 8 PM,  the day concludes with an Indian Summer Showcase of musical concerts. If your musical appetite was whetted by the day's mini-concerts, be sure to tune in for the artists' feature performances. Quetzal Guerrero's music bridges many Latin and American cultures and styles. Pop artist She King from Six Nations Reserve captivates listeners with her power, passion, and seducing vocals. Ozomatli, a two-time Grammy Award–winning band, describes its sound as "urban-Latino-and-beyond collision of hip hop and salsa, dancehall and cumbia, samba and funk, merengue and comparsa, East LA R&B and New Orleans second line, Jamaican ragga and Indian raga."  

  

 

 

Clockwise from upper left: Quetzal Guerrero; photo courtesy of the artist. She King; photo courtesy of the artist. Ozomatl; photo copyright 2012 Christian Lantry; used with permission.

On Sunday, July 21, from noon to 4:30 PM, the museum will webcast the Living Earth Festival’s iconic cooking face-off, Native Chef Cooking Competition. This year the competition puts the heat on Don McClellan (Cherokee) and Freddie Bitsoie (Navajo) as they cook up their gourmet entrées for the title of NMAI’s Top Chef. Like the menu of the museum’s Mitsitam Café, the chefs’ innovative recipes will be inspired by traditional Native American foods. 

INDIAN SUMMER SHOWCASE 
August 10 & September 21

Every summer the museum brings talented performers to the National Mall for free, public concerts. We webcast as many of these great evenings as we can. In addition to the triple-header during the Living Earth Festival mentioned above, the museum has two more concerts/concert webcasts coming up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rita Coolidge (left) and C.J. Chenier. Photos courtesy of the artists

On Saturday, August 10, at 5 PM, the legendary, multiple Grammy Award–winning singer Rita Coolidge (Cherokee) will perform some of her classic hits from the 1970s and '80s, as well as newer pieces.  

On Saturday, September 21, at 5 PM, just see if you can stay off your dancing feet as C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band perform their infectious Zydeco music. The band received a 2011 Grammy nomination for their album Can’t Sit Down. 

STORYTELLING FROM THE  imagiNATIONS ACTIVITY CENTER 
August 2, August 9 & September 21

The imagiNATIONS Activity Center is the museum’s space dedicated to interactive exhibits and fun activities for children of all ages. In addition to webcasting the sculpting workshop during the Living Earth Festival mentioned above, the museum will be bringing three talented Native storytellers to our webcast audience in the next few months.  

Mokihana (left) and Gail Ross. Photos courtesy of the artists

On Friday, August 2, at 11 AM and 1 PM, Mokihana (Missy Scalph), a graduate of Halau Mohala `Ilima, a traditional hula school in Kailua, Hawai`i, will share traditional hula, songs, and stories in an interactive program created to entertain and educate visitors about Native Hawaiian culture.  

On Friday, August 9, at 1 PM and 3 PM, the museum invites you to spend some time with Gail Ross, a direct descendent of John Ross, who was Principal Chief of the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears. Gail is the author of five critically acclaimed children’s books, a distinguished lecturer, and a master of the age-old art of storytelling. Traditional Cherokee stories will be the focus of these programs. 

On Saturday, September 21, at 11 AM, Grayhawk Perkins (Choctaw/Houma), the well-known Louisiana educator, musician, and expert on Native American and Colonial American history, will take on his role as a “tribal storyteller” and share tales of ancient cultures. 

Grayhawk Perkins.
Photo courtesy of the artist

 

SYMPOSIUM: REVEALING ANCESTRAL AMERICA
September 8 

Ulúa River vessel depicting dancers (rollout detail), AD 750–850. Honduras. 6/1259

On Sunday, September 8, from 10:30 AM to 4:15 PM, the museum will present Revealing Ancestral Central America, a symposium co-sponsored by NMAI and the Smithsonian Latino Center. The symposium features leading voices in the interpretation of Central America’s rich cultural heritage as revealed in the archeaology of the region. The exhibitionCerámica de los Ancestros: Central America’s Past Revealed is on view at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C., through February 1, 2015.

 

Disappointed to Miss a Program?

The museum archives most webcasts within a few days of the live event. If you have to miss one of these programs and would like to view it later, look for it on the NMAI YouTube Channel. Programs archived recently include Wahzhazhe: An Osage Ballet, performed on March 23; six programs from the 7th Annual Hawai`i Festival, celebrated May 25 and 26; and 13 programs from Choctaw Days 2013, a cultural festival that took place at the museum on June 21. 

—Mark Christal, NMAI

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