Spring 2004 - Storytellers Telling Stories: Video Works by North American Native Artists

Inuit and American Indian artists using digital video and new media are producing contemporary works that draw upon a wealth of stories and knowledge derived from the oral traditions of their preliterate societies.  These video works incorporate elements of storytelling and performance-based events, often with irony and a trickster 's sense of humor, while celebrating the embodiment of lived and shared mythic experiences that keep cultural knowledge alive.  Well suited to contemporary video, performance and new media, cultural storytelling is finally achieving its rightful place as a significant artform.  Historical re-enactments and an epic narrative from the lives of the nomadic Inuit are among the works presented in Storytellers Telling Stories. Produced by the community-based collective, Igloolik Isuma Productions, Nunavut (Our Land) and Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) were shot in the language, seasons and places of the Canadian Arctic where these stories have developed over millennia.  The program also includes works of three individual Canadian and American Indian artists who present a critique of the often distorted representation of American Indians and aboriginal peoples in contemporary media by a culture that idealizes the noble savage while ignoring the condition of displacement many native peoples experience.  As members of two cultures, all of these artists express a sense of loss, but also a strong resiliency of spirit and cultural identity within contemporary post-industrial society. Through viewing this work, we gain insight into our own situation, including the potential for integrating complex natural, social and information ecologies and developing sustainable economies of exchange. –Patrick Clancy

April 2, 2004

Three Episodes from Nunavut (Our Land), Igloolik Isuma Productions (Inuit), 1994 - 95, video, Inuktitut with English subtitles
Episode 4, Tugaliaq (Ice Blocks), 30 min.
Episode 5, Angiraq (Home), 30 min.
Episode 8, Avamuktulik (Fish Swimming Back and Forth), 30 min.

Set in 1945 and 1946, this 13-part dramatic television series brings to life the people, setting and continuing story of the traditional nomadic lifestyle lived by Inuit in the Igloolik region of the Canadian Arctic.  Nunavut (Our Land) dramatizes true stories of today’s Elders, who still remember their early days growing up just before government and settlement life began. –Igloolik Isuma Productions

April 9, 2004

Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), Igloolik Isuma Productions (Inuit collective, founding members Zacharias Kunuk, Pauloosie Qulitalik, Paul Apak Angilirq, Norman Cohn), 2001, 172 min., digital video shown on DVD, Inuktitut with English subtitles

The first feature length film made in the Inuktitut language by an almost entirely Inuit cast and crew, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) is based on an Inuit legend from the dawn of the first millennium that takes place in the area around Igloolik in the Arctic wilderness.  Evil in the form of a mysterious, unknown shaman enters a small community of nomadic Inuit and upsets its balance and spirit of cooperation.  –Igloolik Isuma Productions

April 16, 2004

10, Dana Claxton (Lakota), 2003, 7:20 min., video
10 examines Agatha Christie’s film 10 Little Indians and how it is implicated in the violence against indigenous people.  Jump cutting three different film versions from three different eras, the repeated nursery rhyme becomes more and more aggressive, demonstrating the power of language, words and images. – VTape

The People Dance, Dana Claxton (Lakota), 2001, 23:51 min., video
The People Dance is a surreal story about spirituality and infinity that blends Lakota worldview with media art. – VTape

Younghawk Seven, Anthony Deiter (Plains Cree/Ojibway), 2000, 15:34 min., digital media shown on DVD
“Time and place are spaces that are increasingly being encroached upon. Globally our societies are experiencing a swath of technological change: our world has become smaller and communication is instant. To reclaim my time and space, I revisit places that give me my soul and my being. As an Indian person I have been shown this by my family. As a contemporary Aboriginal artist I offer a voice within many voices that conveys a story of personal experience within certain times and certain places.”
– Anthony Deiter

Indian Having Coffee with Kerouac, Ginsberg and Hemingway, James Luna (Luiseno), 1996, 23 min., video
“When we Indians get together and have a ‘frosty’ one, we talk about LOVE, we talk about the GOVERNMENT, we talk about the REZ, we talk about YOU.  Though this video was somewhat staged for the camera, I think it is the closest that I could get to what we do when we have a tribal chat." – James Luna

Petroglyphs in Motion, James Luna (Luiseno), 2000, 35 min., video
“In this performance I attempted in singular and successive acts to mirror the 'story telling' elements and experiences when one views petroglyphs.” – James Luna