For our third video, we present The Hannah Yoter Band, performing their song “Something Good.” It’s third video from our eight-part Red Carpet Concert series filmed at the Alaskan Hotel during the Alaska Folk Festival. The six-piece band is fronted by Anchorage songwriter Hannah Yoter. This spring she received an individual artist grant from the Rasmuson Foundation to work on the band’s next album.
For our next Red Carpet Concert from the 2017 Alaska Folk Fest, we present the Portland musicians Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms. Returning for their second Red Carpet Concert, we recorded the duo performing their song “Been on the Rocks” at the Alaskan Hotel. They are currently touring with Foghorn Stringband in the UK.
This video was made in collaboration between KTOO Public Media and Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus.
For our first Red Carpet Concert from the 2017 Alaska Folk Fest, we present Juneau folk-duo The Quaintrelles. We filmed Cameron Brockett and Taylor Vidic performing their song “Rolling Stone” at the Alaskan Hotel. The two are spending their summer at the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway.
This video was made in collaboration between KTOO Public Media and Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus.
The six-piece started playing in New York’s punk bars which inspired their rowdy, high-energy sound. “You know, nothing too delicate,” banjo and guitarist Bug Jennings said.
Expect to hear lots of fiddle, twangy telecaster guitar, country shuffles and lyrics you wouldn’t expect from classic country.
Jennings says the band attempts to bring a barn dance feel to their more absurd take on classic forms. Their song “Working Class” is about “drinking away a a college education right on into a big pile a student loan debt.”
“We figured there weren’t a lot of songs about student loan debt, so we figured we’d write one up,” Jennings said.
See them Friday, May 12, at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center for their dance party set at 7:30 p.m. as part of the 31st Annual Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival.
This healing Raven totem will stand on the site of T’aaḵu K̲wáan ancestral burial grounds on Douglas. (Photo by Aurora Coronell/Goldbelt Heritage Foundation)
(Photo by Aurora Coronell/Goldbelt Heritage Foundation)
The 26-foot Raven Pole honors the Gaanaxteidí clan of the T’aaḵu K̲wáan, featuring Raven clan crests, a leaf of devil’s club that represents healing and a carved staff which represents the end of grieving.
Herb Sheakley, left, and Mick Beasley carved the healing Raven totem. (Photo by Aurora Coronell/Goldbelt Heritage Foundation)
There will be no dancing at the ceremony, which will occur on the ancestral burial grounds of the T’aaḵu K̲wáan. The sacred site was paved over in 1956 to build Gastineau Elementary School.
“This pole really embodies the heaviness of what happened here,” said Barbara Cadiente-Nelson who serves the board of the Douglas Indian Association, the tribal government of the T’aaḵu K̲wáan. She said the pole will restore balance and tend to the souls of the departed.
The Native cemetery was thought to have been relocated to Evergreen Cemetery. But in 2012, a headstone of a Chilkat man was unearthed during construction on the school parking lot. Using ground-penetrating radar, three grave sites were identified.
When the Douglas Indian Association heard the news, they called together several emergency meetings with elders. Cadiente-Nelson said they felt an obligation to address the rediscovery and the original desecration. The T’aaḵu K̲wáan elders considered raising a fight in court, even challenging the school’s existence, but decided against it.
“As they struggled with the enormity of this atrocity, they were comforted in recalling that these children were learning their heritage, the Tlingit language, the stories of the T’aaḵu K̲wáan,” Cadiente-Nelson recalls.
The elders chose to uphold a T’aaḵu K̲wáan value to educate their youth.
“What really comforted them is knowing that these innocent children were dancing and laughing and learning on this land, T’aaḵu K̲wáan, and that’s what buoyed them in such a rough sea of emotions,” Cadiente-Nelson said.
Cadiente-Nelson also works for the Juneau School District, which is working with the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation to create placed-based education covering histories and stories of the Yanyeidí and Gaanaxteidí.
“And of course they’ll learn alongside the history of how this school became constructed on top of a burial ground. And it’s in the telling of it that will bring about healing. It’s no longer buried underneath a school. It’s no longer buried in the minds of our elders as a burden. It’s a story that we have to honor and respect,” Cadiente-Nelson said.
Goldbelt Heritage has another totem raising planned for spring of 2018 less than a mile down the road in Savikko Park. It’s the Eagle Pole recognizing the Yanyeidí clan at the site of the 1962 burning of the Douglas Indian Village.
While families were away fishing on the Taku River, their homes were set fire under direction of the City of Douglas to make room to build a boat harbor. Andrea Cadiente-Laiti, a T’aaḵu K̲wáan tribal government administrator, said the devastation was felt throughout the Native community.
“I’ve talked to so many who say ‘I was here, I don’t remember that, how could I not remember a burning of an entire village?’ But that’s what happened, it just was wiped from people’s memory banks,” said Cadiente-Laiti, who is delivering the keynote at Saturday’s ceremony.
Goldbelt Heritage Traditional Arts and Education Projects Lead Paul Marks believes the pole will honor ancestors and future generations of T’aaḵu K̲wáan.
“That’s the healing of recognizing that hurt, so our children will be healed and they know we took care of it, that we didn’t just stand by and let it happen. We addressed it and that’s part of being Tlingit. That when there’s a problem, we don’t wait for someone else to do it, we take of it,” Marks said.
The totems and curriculum are funded through the Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, which received a grant from federal agencies, in partnership with the Douglas Indian Association and Juneau Schools’ Indian Studies Program.
A Time For Healing Ganéix Gaawú Kudzitee Totem Pole Raising is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at Gastineau Elementary School.
Juneau artists Lauralye Miko and Melissa Griffiths will showcase their work at the Persisters art show happening Friday, May 5, 2017, at the Rockwell back room. (Photo by Annie Bartholomew/KTOO)
Ok, here’s a test. Please try and do this without the internet.
Can you name five famous female visual artists?
On average, the people I asked came up with about two–Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe were the most common answers.
Melissa Griffiths works on a piece of embroidery for the Persisters art show happening Friday, May 5, 2017 at the Rockwell back room. (Photo by Annie Bartholomew/KTOO)
The inability of most people to answer that question is part of the motivation for the Persisters Art Collective.
“I think Emily Rodke is definitely the person who started off with this idea of having an art show with a whole lot of, like women powerhouses that are in our community come together, submit art, and have this great art show,” said organizer Lauralye Miko in a recent KXLL interview.
“And then after the election a lot of us who were already planning on what we were going to do for this art show kind of found some new inspiration, or maybe some new ideas of what we wanted to put out into our community and it kind of evolved from there,” said Miko.
As part of tonight’s First Friday, Persisters, a play on persist and sisters, has organized a pop-up art show.
“The way that I was thinking about the show is maybe a combination of art as self-expression and art as self-care,” said fellow organizer Melissa Griffiths.
And the list of artists is extensive.
“We have Emily Rodke, Bronze Betty Finery, Veronica Buness, we got Wool and Rain — I‘ve seen some of her sneak peeks and it looks amazing, Melissa and I of course, Junnie Chup, Hollis Kitchin, Christianne Carrillo, Christy Eriksen, Kelsey Lovig, Amy Dressel, Amy George. Just tons of people,” said Miko.
The art show pops up from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the Rockwell Back Room.
Hear the entire interview with Juneau artists Melissa Griffiths and Lauralye Miko which originally aired on KXLL 100.7 FM with DJ Annie B.
