The Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award 2012 event will honor Native artists from Minnesota and throughout Indian country, and will share performances and stories from the Anishinaabe, Blackfeet, Oneida, Seneca and Tsimshian tribes.
The event takes place in Minneapolis on September 27 and will feature performances by comedian Charlie Hill, Jennifer Kreisberg, Git-Hoan (People of the Salmon), and Oshkii Giizhik Singers with Elizabeth Jaakola. A pre-show reception and art auction will be held at 6:30 p.m. (premium tickets required). The show and awards ceremony begins at 8 p.m.
During the event, six Native artists will receive the Community Spirit Award, including:
o Charlie Hill (Oneida Tribes of Wisconsin) – Hill honed his skills at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles before going on to do theater, television and film. According to fellow entertainer Jennifer Kreisberg who nominated him, "Charlie has opened a door and paved a road for Native performers all over Indian Country. He is strengthening our community in his own unique ways – first and foremost is his use of humor as medicine."
o David Boxley (Tsimshian) – Boxley of Kingston, WA and Metlakatla, AK has dedicated the last 30 years of his life to the revitalization and rebirth of Tsimshian arts and culture. He is an accomplished master artist who focuses primarily on traditional design and carving of totem poles, bentwood boxes, rattles, performance masks and other items of his ancestors. He has also helped form four successful dance groups in Seattle and Metlakatla.
o Duane Goodwin (Anishinaabe) – For more than 28 years, Goodwin has made countless contributions in art education and art appreciation in Bemidji and the Leech Lake Reservation.
o Elizabeth Jaakola (Anishinaabe) – Jaakola’s art medium is music: singing, playing, writing and gathering people to make music. A life-long resident of Fond du Lac Reservation, Elizabeth has been a professional musician since 1990, composing string quartets, blues songs, hand drum songs, children’s musical theater and basic folk as well as recording and teaching.
o G. Peter Jemison (Seneca) – Classically trained painter, Jemison, of Victor, N.Y. works in printmaking, lithography and woodcuts. Jemison says that his art is based on his interpretation of the teachings his people have been given by their messengers over the centuries of their existence. Besides pursuing his artistic expression, Jemison manages and lives on an historic site know as Ganondagan that was a Seneca town in the 17th Century.
o Jackie Parsons (Blackfoot) – As a visual and traditional Blackfeet artist, Parsons of Browning, MT says her art medium "consists of any material in my project that allows me to express what I intend the piece to portray." This has included hand-tanned buckskin, seed beads, sweet grass, wood, clay, paint, feathers, shells, bone and wool in the dresses, vests, war bonnets, dolls and other traditional items of the Blackfeet.
The event will be held at The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, 528 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis. For tickets call 612-206-3600 or visit: www.thecowlescenter.org.
