The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts will support the creation of a newly commissioned site-specific installation, It Wasn’t the Dream of Golden Cities, for the museum’s outdoor Allen Houser Art Park. It Wasn’t the Dream of Golden Cities is part of a series of installations/exhibitions by Kade Twist (Cherokee), Steven Yazzie (Laguna/Navajo), Raven Chacon (Navajo), and Nathan Young (Delaware/Kiowa/Pawnee), known as the artist collective Postcommodity, which respond to the 400^th anniversary celebration of the founding of Santa Fe and serve as an intervention on behalf of the Indigenous people who are the original stewards of this land. The new installation will engage re-imagined Indigenous intermediaries of land, culture, and community; investigate the metaphysics of an Indigenous machinic phylum; and deconstruct contemporary manifestations of the market locally while alluding to a global art market.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Museum of Contemporary Native Art $9,075 to support this exhibition.

The Evergreen State College will organize the exhibition Pieces of Home, featuring the work of Native artists Sarah Sense (Chitimacha), Maria Hupfield (Wasauksing), Kade Twist (Cherokee), Jason Lujan (Chiricahua Apache), Kimowan McLain (Cree), Nicholas Galanin (Cherokee), and Merritt Johnson (Mohawk/Blackfoot), who will address the concept of “home.” Is a home a house, a place, a reservation, an ecological region, a spiritual landscape, or a gathering of family and friends? Is home an idea, a feeling, or a literal architectural space? Can we choose home? Is there an ancestral geographic home that is more home than any other place could be? What are the dynamics of the very literal legal and geographic boundaries to home as on tribal lands, reservations, pueblos, and reserves? Whether by choice or by forced relocation, how do we leave one home and make another place home? All of these questions and more will be addressed in this exhibition of mixed media, wallpaper, traditional basket weaving, painting, video, performance, and installation art.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Evergreen State College $12,300 to support this exhibition.

The Riverside Metropolitan Museum will organize the exhibition, American Indian Women Artists: Beyond Craft, focusing on the work of four outstanding contemporary Native women artists: Anita Fields (Osage), Teri Greeves (Kiowa), Pat Courtney Gold (Wasco), and Margaret Wood (Navajo/Seminole). The exhibition presents their work and documents its significance within the field of American Indian art, and reflects American Indian traditions of women’s work. The exhibition’s goal is to increase the knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the work of these artists among new audiences. This will be the first major exhibition on this subject at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Riverside Metropolitan Museum $7,500 to support this exhibition.

The Museum of Arts and Design will produce a catalogue to accompany the exhibition Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, highlighting 100–150 new works by contemporary Native American artists. The series honors the centuries-old Native heritage of the visual arts as part of everyday life, yet challenges traditional stereotypes by presenting work by Native artists within the context of mainstream contemporary art, not as ethnographic artifacts. Changing Hands focuses on established and emerging artists who are interrogating their own traditions to extend artistic and cultural boundaries and, in doing so, formulating a new paradigm for contemporary Native American art theory and practice. The catalogue, published by the Museum of Arts and Design, will contain a forward, a lead essay by the curators, essays by noted authorities, artists and critics, as well as interviews with selected artists, biographies, and images.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Museum of Arts and Design $10,125 to support this publication.

The Return of the Condor is a co-production about the life and legacy of Manuel Quintin Lame, an Indigenous Colombian rebel from the early 20^th century. Coopdanza and Cristina Cortes will collaborate to produce an interdisciplinary performance art, dance-sound-video installation with pre-Columbian elements and contemporary atmosphere which is referred to as chirimias, or spoken word and vocals in Native, Spanish, and English languages.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded CRIC/Coopdanza $10,000 to support this project.

Choreographer Patrick Makuakane will support the project Kapalakiko, a new dance theater work featuring specially commissioned chants and songs composed by Puakea Nogelmeier, a preeminent linguist and scholar of the Hawaiian language. “Kapalakiko” is Hawaiian for San Francisco, and the proposed suite of dances will be a celebratory exploration of the long historical connection between Hawai‘i and the City by the Bay. Illustrated through the use of hula, chanting, storytelling, and music, this theatrical dance creation is intended to advance the public dialogue about the experiences of America’s indigenous peoples as it illuminates the ties that bind us together in a pluralistic society.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu/Patrick Makuakane $9,000 to support this project.

Dancing Earth Creations will develop a site-specific, structured improvisation as the opening ceremony for its large-scale work, Of Bodies Of Elements. “Invokation” will serve to balance professional performance practices with functional ritual that serves as the root of Native dance and lies at the heart of Dancing Earth’s creativity. The collaborative process will involve the choreographer, dancers, and a live musical accompanist. Dancer/choreographer Rulan Tangen will work with indigenous collaborators to discover shapes and movement phrases that relate to the performers’ respective tribal heritages while also exploring the interplay between outdoors and indoors.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Dancing Earth Creations $10,000 to support this project.

The publication, Art, Gender and Community: Contemporary Native Women Artists is drawn from three seminars with eleven Native women artists on the topic held at the School for Advanced Research, Indian Arts Research Center in 2007 and 2008. The publication will document their exploratory dialogue on their roles as women and community members, the role of art in their lives, and feature new work created in response to the seminars. Essayists include Lara Evans (Cherokee), Sherry Farrell Racette (Timiskaming), Cynthia Chavez Lamar (San Felipe/Navajo), and Gloria Emerson (Navajo).

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the School for Advanced Research $7,500 to support this publication.

The publication, Beat Nation: Hip Hop as Indigenous Culture, will explore elements of hip hop and youth culture in artworks by Native artists in the U.S. and Canada reflecting the growing influence of urban cultures on traditional communities. It will focus on fusions between the traditional and post-modern in the music, visual art, and culture from these communities, reflecting the realities of a new generation. Edited by Tania Willard (Secwepemc), the publication will include work by Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit), Sonny Assu (Laich-kwil-tach), Jackson 2 Bears (Mohawk), Bracken Hanuse Corlett (Oweekano), Andrew Dexel (Nkla’pamux), Kevin Burton (Cree), Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree), Larrissa Healy (Cree), Bunky Echo-Hawk (Yakama/Pawnee), and Thomas Ryan Red Corn (Osage).

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Visible Arts Society $7,500 to support this publication.

The exhibition, Rendezvoused, a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin and the University of Ca’Foscari (Venice, Italy) will open at the Venice Biennale 53rd International Arts Exhibition June 5, 2009. The term “rendezvous,” with historic roots in colonial fur trade parlance, refers to a contemporary movement in which living history re-enactors gather to engage in a fantasy interpretation of American Indian life. The exhibition, curated by Nancy Mithlo (Apache), will address the transfer of cultural capital and question the significance of restoration through the work of painter Andrea Carlson (Anishinaabe descent) and photographer Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk). The artists and curator will act as observers and commentators on invented histories.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System $7,500 to support this exhibition.

The exhibition, Navajo Weaving in the Present Tense: The Art of Lucy and Ellen Begay will be the first retrospective exhibition for Lucy Begay (Navajo) and her daughter, Ellen Begay (Navajo). Drawn primarily from the private collection of Gary Beaudoin, the exhibition will feature over twenty artworks woven over the past twenty years. Though their work is strongly rooted in and inspired by the Burntwater Navajo weaving style, which utilizes vegetal dyes and was developed in the Wide Ruins area of Arizona, mid-20th century, their work is visually commanding, sophisticated and complex fiber art.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles $7,500 to support this exhibition.

Theater director Randy Reinholz (Choctaw), playwright Diane Glancy, of mixed Cherokee and European descent, and costumer Christina Wright will explore the history of Native education through language and costume. Drawing in part on knowledge gained by visiting the NMAI’s collections, they will create a touring performance piece designed to help Native students face the difficulties of the educational process.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Diane Glancy $5,000 to support this project.

Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s artistic director Santee Smith (Mohawk) will collaborate with composer Barbara Croall (Odawa) to create chamber ensemble music for a new 60-minute dance piece. Funding will also be used for final modifications to set, costume, and lighting design.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre $10,000 to support this project.

Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way is a cross-disciplinary performance project rooted in the story narrative of mola art and the pictographs that notate Kuna healing chants. The collaborators, actor/playwright Monique Mojica (Kuna/Rappahannock), visual artist DeLeon Kantule (Kuna), and costume designer/textile artist Erika Iserhoff (Cree), will spend one week in the Kuna collection at the NMAI as a major step toward creating a new theatrical production.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Monique Mojica $5,000 to support this project.

JudyLee Oliva (Chickasaw) will collaborate with flutist/composer/engineer Jan Seiden to create new music for a revised edition of her play, Te Ata. Playing on more than thirty different Native flutes and drawing on her expertise as a producer/sound engineer, Seiden will work with Oliva to compose and record music and sound effects to accompany the play—eliminating the need for orchestra, and grounding the play in a more Native tradition. The result will make touring of the production more feasible.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded JudyLee Oliva $10,000 to support this project.

Cultural Resources, in conjunction with the Maine Indian Basket Alliance, will organize a traveling exhibition titled North by Northeast: Wabanaki, Akwesasne, Mohawk and Tuscarora Traditional Arts. It will feature beadwork, basketry, woodcarving, birch bark canoe making, and other traditional arts. This group exhibition seeks to increase the visibility of artists from this region, and will include the work of David Mose Bridges (Passamaquoddy), Marlene Printup (Tuscarora), Henry Arquette (Mohawk), and Jennifer Neptune (Penobscot), among many others. The exhibition will be presented at the Akwesasne Museum & Cultural Center, Hogansburg, NY (May–September 2008); the Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, Maine (October 2008–May 2009); and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, CT (May 2009–September 2009).

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Cultural Resources, Inc., $10,200 to support this exhibition.

The Art Association of Jackson Hole will host the traveling exhibition Marie Watt: Blanket Stories, organized by the Nicolaysen Art Museum. Watt (Seneca) is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts and holds an MFA from Yale. Blanket Stories explores the symbolism of blankets within American Indian culture historically and today. The exhibition includes enormous quilts, stacked blanket works, and cedar and bronze sculpture. As part of the programming, Watt will lead gallery talks, present a slide lecture, and organize a family sewing circle to encourage discussion of contemporary and historical Native American art, traditions, and personal inspiration. The community will contribute blankets and stories to a public blanket stack in exchange for a Watt print. Watt will also be a featured Indigenous Art guest at the daily summer KidzArt Camp.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Art Association of Jackson Hole $8,000 to support this exhibition.

Ili-ho: The Surface Within exhibition will explore, from an indigenous perspective, four textile treasures from Bishop Museum: a magnificient feathered cloak, a fine makaloa mat, an intricate kappa, and a moving protest quilt. Guest Curated by Native Hawaiian artist and professor Maile Andrade, the exhibit will invite eight contemporary Hawaiian artist to explore these ancestral creations, creating their own works which delve into surfaces within. The exhibition, which will coincide with the 11th Annual Textile Society of America Biennial Symposium, is a celebration of the depth and complexity of Native contemporary textile art and emphasizes the role of the Native community in interpreting and understanding their own material culture.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Bishop Museum $10,000 to support this exhibition.

As part of the restoration of Stanley Park, damaged by a windstorm in 2006, the Stanley Park Environmental Art Project will bring together artists/artist teams to work in collaboration with ecologists, park stewards, educators, and the land, animals and plants to create site-specific artwork. Tania Willard, a multi-media artist from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) Nation of British Columbia, will explore and create new work, responding to newly revealed evidence of Native history in the park, integrated with the knowledge of elders. Through this project Willard will work alongside other commissioned artists, including T’Uy’Tanat Cease Wyss (Coast Salish), Peter Von Tiesenhausen, and Shirley Wiebe.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Stanley Park Ecology Society $15,000 to support Tania Willard’s participation in the exhibition.

The Nicolaysen Art Museum will present a retrospective exhibition of David Bradley (Minnesota White Earth Chippewa) as part of its Contemporary American Indian Art Series. Bradley’s paintings combine a folk narrative style with political and social messages concerning Native American life and culture. He also draws from icons of Western art history to craft his jolting, colorful, playful, and subversive paintings. A 40-page exhibition catalogue will be published, featuring essays by curator Lisa Hatachadoorian and writer Gerald Vizenor (Minnesota White Earth Chippewa).

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Nicolaysen Museum $14,300 to support this exhibition.

Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs is an exhibition catalogue which will be co-published by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Williamette University and the University of Washington Press. The exhibition, organized by the Hallie Ford Museum in partnership with the Evergreen State College, is a retrospective of the work of multi-media artist Joe Feddersen (Colville) and will feature an extraordinary selection of the artist’s best work in prints, glass, and weaving since the mid-1990s. In addition to a biographical essay by the exhibition curator, professor Rebecca Dobkins, the full-color 112-page book will include 60-70 images, a critical essay by artist and writer Gail Tremblay (Onondaga/Mi’kmaq) and an introduction by artist Barbara Thomas. Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs, will be a new volume in the prestigious Jacob Lawrence Series on American Art and Artists of the University of Washington Press.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Hallie Ford Museum of Art $15,000 to support this publication.

Composer/cellist/vocalist Dawn Avery (Mohawk descent), along with percussionist/vocalist Steven Alvarez (Yaqui/Mescalero Apache/Upper Tanana Athabaskan) and violinist Tara-Louise Montour (Mohawk), will form a new Native classical chamber music trio, Three Sides. Three new works, including video and narration, will be premiered by the trio as part of the Montgomery College World Arts Festival in Montgomery County, and the University of Maryland Ethnomusicology Department, and at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. These works, composed by Dawn Avery, will be accompanied by narratives by poet Janet-Marie Rogers (Mohawk/Tuscarora), videography by Chris Bose (N’laka pamux), and a narrative ceremony led by elder Jan Longboat (Mohawk).

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Dawn Avery $10,000 to support this project.

Tsimshian artist and performer David Boxley will teach a Tsimshian dance to the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) Dancers, oversee the inaugural performance of that dance, and produce a working box drum for use at ANHC dance and theatrical performances. He will also serve as executive producer for dramatic performance of a new play based on Tsimshian cultural traditions and provide a mask-making workshop for ANHC staff, which will use the mask in the dramatic performance.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded The Alaska Native Heritage Center $13,000 to support this project.

Cauyaqa Nauwa? – Where is My Drum? is a collaboration between Yup’ik storyteller Jack Dalton and Yup’ik singer, dancer, and tradition-bearer Stephen Blanchett. Their story will trace the history and relate the importance of the cauyaq, or drum, in Yup’ik culture. The story will follow the cauyaq from its creation and perfection as an implement used in sacred, ceremonial, and social life, its repression and destruction by missionaries, and its resurrection and renaissance in modern times. This piece will have two versions: one developed purely for theatrical presentation, and the second as a teaching device for area school children.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Jack Dalton and Stephen Blanchett $9,000 to support this project.

Home: Inside & Out will be a series of vignettes that express the connections to home which delve into the deep sense of belonging and identity that connects Native Hawaiians to place, family, friends, values, and emotions. New dances will be choreographed by fusing a mixture of traditional hula, creative movement, and dramatic staging. These dances will be set to nouveau-Hawaiian musical compositions that will draw from ancient forms and chanting textures, accompanied by Native and western instruments. The project is an intergenerational collaborative project involving kuma hula Hokulani Holt, Maui Arts and Cultural Center Program Director, and a culture-based team of next generation Native Hawaiian artists who share an innate connection to traditional hula.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Maui Arts and Cultural Center $11,500 to support this project.

The Witness Project is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary work by choreographer Tom Pearson (Cohaire/Creek/Eastern Band Cherokee), composer/performer Louis Mofsie (Hopi/Winnebago), and performer Donna Ahmadi (Cherokee/Chickasaw). These artists will visit (often for the first time) the sites and communities of their respective Native lineage. The journey and performance that will be derived from these explorations are an attempt to understand and reconcile the realities of being mixed-race Native artists living and working in an urban landscape. During their journeys to North Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, and Nebraska and in subsequent studio rehearsals, the artists will create a series of vignettes that explore the issue of identity. Director/videographer Zach Morris will document their experiences, and film segments will be used in performances, along with music composed by Mr. Mofsie that will be played live by the musical group, Heyna Second Sons.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded Third Rail Projects $10,000 to support this project.

The project will harness the power of storytelling, music, and digital media to build cross-cultural understanding of the relationship between tradition and geography in Native culture. Renowned Niantic-Narragansett storyteller Paula Dove Jennings will visit several culturally relevant historic places—the Narragansett Indian Church, the Great Swamp, School House Pond, Deep Pond—and tell a new or previously unrecorded story about each place on site; each story will be video and audio recorded. The Stories will then be digitally edited and original and traditional music will be performed by the Netteukkusk Singers, to be incorporated. A DVD will be produced that will include digital photographs of Narragansett Indian cultural objects in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). These objects were researched in Spring 2005 by Nuweetooun School students on a week-long training workshop to develop a virtual museum exhibit at NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island, $9,000 to support this project.

Ady will draw together the talents of playwright Rhianna Yazzie (Navajo), visual artist Carolyn Anderson (Navajo), choreographer Emily Johnson (Yup’ik), and Pangea World Theater dramaturg Meena Ntarajan. These artists will create a one-person play about the life of Ady Fidelin, a dancer from the island of Guadeloupe, whose relationship with Man Ray in the 1930s brought her into contact with Pablo Picasso and other surrealists. The play will exploit the striking resemblance between Ms. Fidelin and Ms. Yazzie, using the disciplines of playwriting, visual art, and dance to confront an unexpected intersection of colonialism, DNA, Navajo culture, sexuality, dancing, writing, the island of Guadeloupe, and the art of Man Ray and Pablo Picasso. The creators of Ady hope to demonstrate the new energy and momentum that the Native artistic community is bringing to the stage.

The National Museum of the American Indian has awarded the Pangea World Theater $10,000 to support this project.