FROM THE EDITOR
Toward better visions
Some weeks ago, Shyanne Beatty was talking with a friend and she noticed something was missing in Alaska Native life.
"We have awards for the business people, but not for performing artists," she says, recalling her earlier thoughts as she leads off the evening at the Alaska Native Visionary Awards in November, which marked Alaska Native Heritage month.
She names photographer Brian Adams; performers Allison Warden and Jack Dalton; film-maker Andrew McClain. "All these people are out there storytelling, weaving. Where are the awards for these people?"
Beatty has answered her own question, with the help of friends.
The Visionary Awards came together through the involvement of Trina Landlord, Michael Fredericks, Beatty and others, who sought nominations for the first-time event from around the state and ended up with seven winners.
It seems like there could have been more, or less, but that was the number this year. Beatty describes the whole effort as organic.
"Some asked me if we had an agenda for this," she says from the stage at the Snow Goose Theater in Anchorage. "I don't want an agenda. What Native event actually has an agenda?"
The crowd laughs along with her, and an evening that's supposed to be fun and organic takes root.
Along the way, James Dommek Jr. from the Whipsaws stops by and plays songs on guitar from his new solo album. Elizabeth Hensley comes on stage and shows that she can sing as well as deliver meaningful oratory as a keynote speaker at the AFN convention. Allison Warden is also in the house, performing rap to a backbeat that she keeps coaxing a technician to turn up louder.
Mixed in are the award winners, with their names up in lights from a PowerPoint display projected on the theater's screen.
• Lisa Dolchok, a traditional healer originally from Clark's Point who works at Southcentral Foundation. Beatty notes a way Dolchok helps patients keep their family and culture in front of them. She'll ask whether they have grandchildren. "Who's going to teach them if you die tomorrow?" Dolchok will then ask.
• Lance Twitchell is "a force of nature," Beatty says, who in involved in Tlingit language development, traditional medicine, tribal government and foster parenting.
• Crystal Dushkin of Atka, a beader, dancer and winner of multiple awards for storytelling.
• Anna Brown Ehlers of Juneau, a maker of multiple Chilkat blankets, provider of looms. She's encouraged listless teenagers at culture camp by declaring a "Star Wars" day, Beatty says.
• Lalla Williams, originally of Karluk, is a noted skin-sewer and artist who has spent more than 20 years researching Alutiiq traditions.
• Robert Charlie, an 82-year-old cultural dynamo who led culture camps at Minto and is currently working on a video with other elders. Beatty asks him what he's eating to have aged so well. "Moose and salmon," he replies. Beatty says this makes her feel better about her own future.
• Loren Anderson, the cultural program manager for the Alaska Native Heritage Center, is an admitted late bloomer as a Sugpiag. But he's made up for lost time through carving, a dance group, and not being shy about sharing.
"We're all culture-bearers," he tells the audience.
Anderson recalls a long airplane trip for the crowd that gave him an opportunity to extend his Native roots. When the woman next to him on the flight asked where he was from, Anderson launched into his heritage.
"I told her not how proud I was about myself, but about my parents, my grandparents. Then when I got done bragging about my culture, I asked her about hers. She said, 'I don't have a culture. I come from L.A.'"
Quyana,
—Tony Hall