Tickets Available Now!
Sacred Breath Winter Festival March 7th and 8th, 2025 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.
Join us for 2 days of Storytelling!
Friday, March 7th, 7:30pm at Town Hall Seattle - Tickets Available Now
We begin Friday, March 7th with an evening program at Town Hall Seattle featuring Arigon Starr. As Arigon is such a multi-talented performer you can expect a mix of music, reading, art show, and storytelling!
Saturday, March 8th, 10am-3pm at UW wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House - RSVP Here
We continue Saturday, March 8th on the UW Seattle campus with a day of workshops, Q&A with various local artists, lunch, and open workshop time for participants to work on personal projects and receive feedback. Saturday workshops are free, with RSVP requested. Priority for students high school age and above. We want to especially encourage anyone working on an art, literature, or storytelling project of their own to attend and bring their work, as we will have open workshop time with provided materials and a chance to ask questions and get feedback from our guest artists.
Workshops will include:
Drawing and Design by Roger Fernandes
Creating Digital Comics by Arigon Starr
more coming soon!
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ARIGON STARR (Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma)
Arigon Starr (Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma) is a multi-discipline creator with achievements in music, theater, and art. She fuses her Native heritage with contemporary storytelling methods in all her songs, plays, and comic books. She utilizes large doseds of humor, dispelling Native stereotypes one story at a time. As a musical performer, she released four CDs and toured across the US, UK, and Australia. As a theater artist, she has starred in dozens of productions and is a multi-produced playwright. Her comic art and writing range across many genres, including the superhero comic character "Super Indian," the historical "Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers" and social commentary with "The Nib." Her illustrations for the 2023 book "Contenders: Two Native Americans, One World Series" (Kokila/Penguin/Random House Books) received several awards, including a picture book honor from the American Indian Youth Literature Association. Her career was recently featured in season two of the PBS Series "Native America."
Join Arigon as she discusses how storytelling and humor are the foundation of her creative process, in addition to performing selected original songs live.
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.