Save the Date!
Sacred Breath Winter Festival Coming March 7th and 8th, 2024 featuring Arigon Starr and Roger Fernandes
The Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington hosts an annual literary and storytelling series. Sacred Breath features Indigenous writers and storytellers sharing their craft at the beautiful wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House on the UW Seattle campus. Storytelling offers a spiritual connection, a sharing of sacred breath. Literature, similarly, preserves human experience and ideals. Both forms are durable and transmit power that teaches us how to live. Both storytelling and reading aloud can impact audiences through the power of presence, allowing for the experience of the transfer of sacred breath as audiences are immersed in the experience of being inside stories and works of literature.
Our Winter Festival features 2 days of events. We begin Friday, March 7th with an evening program at Town Hall Seattle featuring Arigon Starr and Roger Fernandes. As Arigon Starr is such a multi-talented performer you can expect a mix of music, reading, art show, and storytelling! We continue Saturday, March 8th on the UW Seattle campus with a half day of workshops, a panel presentation and Q&A with various local artists, vendors, lunch, and more.
Event is free. RSVP Available Soon.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ARIGON STARR (Kickapoo, Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Seneca)
Arigon Starr is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma. Her father, Ken Wahpecome (Kickapoo) was a career Navy man and her mother, Ruth (Muscogee (Creek)/Cherokee/Seneca) was a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University. Arigon and her sister Gay grew up on the road as part of their military family, living on or near Naval bases across the US and as far away as Subic Bay, Philippines.
As a musician, Starr’s music has taken her around the world including stops in London and the famous West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, in addition to appearances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and at venues like Sky City and Isleta Casinos in New Mexico, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC and New York City. Arigon was named “Songwriter of the Year” by the Native American Music Awards and received a nomination for “Best Country CD” from Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples Choice Awards.
Starr has also gained fame for her acting and has been awarded two First Americans in the Arts Awards, the Maverick Award from the Los Angeles Women’s Theater Project, and a Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers Award.
In April 2011, Starr published Super Indian online as a webcomic. The comic boasted a new panel every Monday continuously for almost five years. The weekly webcomics were compiled and published as Super Indian Volume One in 2012 to immediate acclaim. Her work has been highlighted in the publications First American Art and Native Peoples, featured on the national news program PBS News Hour and on the arts blog of the National Endowment for the Arts. Super Indian Volume Two was published in 2015 and Super Indian Volume Three was published in 2024.
ROGER FERNANDES (Lower Elwha S'Klallam)
Roger Fernandes is a Native American artist, storyteller and educator whose work focuses on the traditional arts, legends, and teachings of the Coast Salish tribes of the Puget Sound region of Western Washington. He is a member of the Lower Elwha S’Klallam Tribe and has a degree in Native American Studies from the Evergreen State College and a Masters Degree in Whole Systems Design from Antioch University. He also studied graphic design at the University of Washington and has focused on learning, creating and teaching Coast Salish art for the past 20 years.
Can't wait for our Winter Event? View some of our previous events on YouTube.
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from November 14th, 2024. This event featured writer and storyteller Richard Van Camp (Tłı̨chǫ Dene from Fort Smith, NWT) as well as artist and storyteller Roger Fernandes (Lower Elwha S'Klallam).
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from November 18th, 2021. This event featured authors Emma Elliott-Groves (Cowichan Tribes) an author and UW professor, and her mother Huyamise' Della Rice-Sylvester (Cowichan Tribes) a traditional medicine woman and storyteller.
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from May 17th, 2021. This event featured children's book author Christine Day (Upper Skagit) and Jessica Dominy (Tlingit and Haida).
Watch the full event recording of Sacred Breath from November 23rd, 2020. This event featured authors Traci Sorell (Cherokee), Michelle M. Jacob (Yakama), and storyteller Fern Renville (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate).
Do you love Sacred Breath and want to see more?
Donate to our Friends of American Indian Studies fund to help us support indigenous authors and storytellers and bring you more amazing works.
Read about Sacred Breath in the A&S Perspectives newsletter.
These events are free and open to the public, but registration is required, as space is limited. wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House is located at 4249 Whitman Court, Seattle, WA.
Sacred Breath is sponsored by the Department of American Indian Studies, the Intellectual House Academic Programming Committee, the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, the UW Department of English, the Banks Center for Educational Justice, the Squaxin Island Tribe, the Suquamish Tribe, and the Muckelshoot Tribe.