Entertainment

Published: Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009

American Indian traditional showcased in two events at the Cohan Center

Lakota Sioux Dance Theatre and The Nammys on Tour share the ancient music and dance of several American Indian groups

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In American Indian culture, the arts are everything.

“An integral part of our heritage is music,” said singer-songwriter Joanne Shenandoah, a member of the Oneida tribe. “Music surrounds everything from birth to death…We know it, we hear it and we can feel the effects of it on almost everyone we know.”

Henry Smith, artistic director of Lakota Sioux Indian Dance Theatre, described dance as “part of everyday life.”

“The drum beat is like the heartbeat of the people,” he said.

Two groups offer a chance to delve deeper during November, Native American Heritage Month.

Lakota Sioux Indian Dance Theatre performs Monday at the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. Two days later, it’s The Nammys on Tour — featuring Shenandoah and her fellow Native American Music Award winners, flute player R. Carlos Nakai and the Yellow Bird Indian Dancers.

According to Shenandoah, performers have an obligation to share their gifts.

“As Iroquois, we believe that everybody has special talents,” Shenandoah said, “and if they are used in a good spirit and a good mind, the whole world is a better place.”

Sharing traditions

Formed in 1978 on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota, Lakota Sioux Indian Dance Theatre seeks to share the sounds, stories and dances of tribal peoples with the outside world.

“A lot of the purpose of these pieces is to educate,” said Smith, whose visit includes a potluck gathering at the Santa Ynez Reservation. “Rather than just a pageant, we try to give a deeper understanding and appreciation of the culture.”

Each show features 10 male and female performers clad in traditional regalia and accompanied by drum, flute and voice. They perform more than a dozen dances against a backdrop of vivid video imagery.

Examples include animal dances, the energetic fancy dance and the jingle dress dance, performed by women adorned with hundreds of jangling metal cones.

The group’s current production is “Cokata Upo!” — “Come to the Center” in Sioux.

Based on the traditional Lakota Sioux creation story, the show chronicles the birth of the Sioux nation, its widespread decimation due to disease, hunger and war, and its modern rebirth.

Even though “Cokata Upo!” references the mistreatment suffered by American Indians over the centuries, Smith

stresses that “Cokata Upo!” is not a political piece.

“It’s kind of a spiritual experience,” he said, drawing on social, historical and religious aspects alike. “The audience journeys into that culture and understands it and appreciates it.”

According to Smith, the company’s message has resonated with audience members in Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States.

His own exposure to American Indian dance came in the 1970s, when the New York choreographer served as an artist-in- residence at the Pierre Indian Learning Center in South Dakota.

“I was so struck by the power of the drum and the power of the dance,” said Smith, who became an honorary tribe member. “This was a gift and a great encounter, finding that in the middle of America.”

He worked with tribal leaders Ben Black Bear and Lloyd One Star to create Lakota Sioux Indian Dance Theatre.

Like Smith, most of the performers have been involved in the company for years — even generations. The group’s flautist of 18 years, Bryan Akipa, won Best Male Artist at this year’s Native American Music Awards.

Making use of gifts

The Nammys, created in 1998, honor artists from North and South America alike.

“A lot of the music that is performed and heard is life-altering to people all over the world,” said Shenandoah, a 12-time Nammy winner.

She’ll perform Wednesday alongside wooden flute virtuoso Nakai and the Yellow Bird Indian Dancers, based in Mesa, Ariz.

An Arizona native of Navajo-Ute descent, Nakai has received six Grammy Award nominations and collaborated with the likes of Hawaiian slack-key guitarist Keola Beamer, jazz flautist Paul Horn and classical composer Philip Glass.

Nakai has 37 albums in commercial distribution, including 2008’s “Talisman.”

Shenandoah, a Wolf Clan member of the Oneida nation in upstate New York, grew up with equal appreciation for her American Indian heritage and her musical roots. Her father, a jazz guitarist and Oneida chief, played with Duke Ellington. Her mother is a clan mother and singer.

“When I sing, that’s when I’m in my element,” said Shenandoah, whose native name translates as “She Sings.”

She remembers performing a Sam Cooke song in a third-grade talent show, and studying cello, clarinet and flute at private school.

In 1990, she performed at the Paha Sapa Music Festival in South Dakota, sharing the playbill with such luminaries as Neil Young, Jackson Browne and John Denver.

After school, however, Shenandoah put her music career on hold.

“At that point, I was looking for what I thought would be the American dream — to be successful, to have everything,” Shenandoah said.

One day, while working as an architectural systems engineer in Washington, D.C., she glanced out her office window and saw a 200-year-old tree being cut down.

The message was clear, the singer-songwriter said. She, too, had become uprooted.

“I knew that I was not making the best use of my creator-given gifts,” Shenandoah said. “I knew that I had to come back to my territory.”

Over the years, she has recorded 14 albums, performed at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden and the White House, and appeared in two PBS television specials — 2003’s “Dancing on Mother Earth” and 2004’s “Songs of the Spirit.”

Shenandoah won a Grammy Award for her work on the 2005 album “Sacred Ground: A Tribute to Mother Earth.” She released her latest album — “Bitter Tears Sacred Ground,” a folk-contemporary collaboration with Michael Bucher — this May.

Her eclectic sound, heard on the soundtrack of “Transamerica,” draws on influences as varied as Karen Carpenter, Wayne Newton, Billy Holiday and Patsy Cline.

“I’m very tuned to the music people listen to, the music they love and what speaks to them,” She said. “Music just brings a whole healing vibration. … It’s beautiful and uplifting and spiritual, without justification.”