In 2022, Native American authors gathered in Montana for festival to celebrate writing by Native Americans. The success of that gathering has had people yearning for more.
On August 1 and 2, Native artists from numerous formats will gather at the Missoula Public Library for the first ever IndigiPalooza – an Indigenous arts and storytelling event. The event is the result of a year of planning.
The free two day event is open to the public.
Among the events being presented are music, art, traditional foods and demonstrations, writers, panel discussions, and storytellers.
A member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, La Tray noted he if often the only Native American in attendance at conferences and book events saying, “we never get this kind of a platform for just Native people to be talking about our work among other Native people.”
Blackfeet artist John Pepion added, “said it’s important for people to hear from Indigenous artists.”
The festival kicks off with the only Native American U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo who will do a poetry reading and discussion.
Speaking on Harjo, La Tray said, “the ground that she’s broken for other people, she’s one of our most cherished elders. Whether it’s in our community or just as an Indigenous person helping to keep us visible.”
Among the seven panel discussions is one on the importance of Indigenous storytelling. For generations, the history of the world, its creation, and events was relayed orally – through storytelling.
Also on the schedule is a performance by musicians Foreshadow and Supaman.
La Tray noted, “it’s entirely modern. If you go to a powwow, there’s this traditional dancing and a lot of this traditional stuff. I feel like there’s plenty of opportunity to see that, but what can happen, too, is that people can get this idea that that’s all we are. But we are modern participants in the world as it is today. … We can still be Native without being shoved into this box that people like to keep us in, like everything stopped in the 1880s.”
Founding director of the Chickadee Community Services Anna East said, “the tradition of Indigenous storytelling goes back millennia. And right now, in the time of Lily Gladstone and “Reservation Dogs” and Indigenous fashion and a return to Indigenous approaches to nutrition and food sovereignty, all of those are important parts of the culture that everybody can learn from.”
Joining Joy Harjo are presenters Aspen Decker, Shadow Devereaux, Jesse Desrosier, Dr. Shane Doyle, Mariah Gladstone, Dr. Denise K. Lajimodiere, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, Chris La Tray, Carrie Moran McCleary, Stella Nall, John Isaiah Pepion, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, supaman, James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw, and Diane Wilson.
For more information on the inaugural Indigipalooza, go to ipfestmt.com.
IndiPalooza Schedule:
August 1:
4pm – First Friday Indigenous Art Show
6:30pm – An evening with Joy Harjo
August 2:
9:30am – Telling Our Stories Ourselves
9:30am – A recipe for Resillence with Mariah Gladstone -cooking
11am – Poetry and Oral Tradition
2pm – The Perils and Pitfalls of Cultural ambassadorship
3:30pm – Indigenous entrepreneurship: Creativity and Commerce
5pm – Hip-Hop show with Foreshadow and Supaman