Project Title: Round Dance
Recipient Organization: Native American Cultural Center
Fiscal Sponsor: South of Market Cultural Center
Lead Artist: Abena Songbird
Genre and Date Awarded: Literary Arts, June 2002
Presented: Live performance October 21, 2001

Poet Abena Songbird and the Native American Cultural Center collaborated to produce “Round Dance,” a group poem instigated on the Web among Native American writers. Their process synthesized with a live poetry jam. At the project’s culmination, they published a CD-ROM incorporating more than 50 different Native artists and poets’ images, including paintings, recorded music tracks, and video clips of the live performances, along with the finished written poem. Media artist Derek Wilson collaborated with the poet and Center on design and technical aspects of the project. Derek also contributed a piece to the poem.

“Round Dance” was created through a “round robin” of poetry on an on-line bulletin board housed on the Native American Cultural Center’s web site. Initially 15 Native American writers of varying background and experience were invited to participate: as the project progressed, Songbird contacted 300 Native artists by e-mail. Through the spontaneous, improvisational nature of the process, others were able (and welcome) to contribute. The series of poems began with inspiration from Abena Songbird’s collection Bitterroot, (Freedom Voices Press 2001) which is dedicated “to indigenous people of Mother Earth living in recovery.” As the project web site was launched on September 10, 2001, the poem’s theme became a Native expression of sadness and frustration at the onset of war. Its structure developed around the theme of the four directions.

While the process began in the Bay Area, the round robin quickly traveled around the country: The Web enabled Native artists to participate whether they lived in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, or in a remote Minnesota reservation, even if they were confined in prison or in a hospital. The lead artist writes, [I’ve] never been part of a larger, group work where multi-submissions by a diverse tribal representation from across Indian country lent their heart/voice (cross-generation) to a group poem—a dance so to speak—that became as a prayer during extremely challenging times….

The project surpassed the collaborators’ original plans for the total number of contributors and achieved broad geographical, tribal, and generation representation. Participants included Chip Livingston (Creek, poet and fiction writer), William LoneFight-Bray (Natchez, Kialegee Muscogee, poet); Princess Peter-Raboff (Gwichin Athabascan, screenwriter and poet), Donna Dean (Cherokee, non-fiction writer), Jim Northrup (Fond du Lac Band-Lake Superior Chippewa, novelist), Anne M. Dunne (Anishnaabe, novelist/poet), Debora Iyall (Cowlitz, poet, recording and visual artist), Carolyn Dunn (Cherokee/Creek/Seminole, poet), Kimberly Blaesar (White Earth Anishnaabe, educator, poet,novelist), Donna Huff-Ahrakana (Inupiaq, poet), Eileen Boughton (Pomo, educator, traditional dancer,poet), Aurora Mamea (Blackfeet, jingle dancer, poet) and Shar Suke(Oneida, Cherokee, powwow coordinator,traditional dancer, poet) and Heath St. John (Lakota/Apache/Chicano, youth outreach worker, rapper, recording artist). In the project’s early phases, the collaborators realized they needed additional help with copyright and web publishing questions for a group poem: Buffy St. Marie provided in-kind assistance.

While steeped in the culture of her Abenaki people, Abena Songbird has extensive contacts and working relationships with members of the Indian community throughout the country. Derek Wilson, her artistic/technical collaborator is a multimedia artist and lecturer in the Multimedia Studies Program at California State University, Hayward.

The San Francisco Arts Commission funds the Native American Cultural Center (NACC) as a cultural center program, to produce programming for the City’s Native American community. NACC is fiscally sponsored by the South of Market Cultural Center (SOMARTS). As a young organization, its initial activities have focused on regranting support to Native American cultural and social organizations such as the American Indian Film Festival and the Native American AIDS project. To promote awareness of the NACC as a cultural resource, two programs have been developed to increase visibility—the nativecc.com web site and Autumnal Equinox, an annual pow-wow styled event. “Round Dance” contributed to development of the Center’s former web site—epowwow.com—as a cultural resource for the Native American community.

Sandra Abena (Songbird) Naylor is an Abenaki/French/Irish poet and singer, a member of the Missisquoi Abenaki of Swanton, Vermont. She was born and lived more than 27 winters in Vermont (Ndakinna) and four years in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has spent the past 14 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sh ecurrent;y

Publications

• Poetry collection: Bitterroot, Freedom Voices Press, Berkeley, California (2001)
• Native publications: Unsomo RedClay, Native Writers Showcase; Moccasin Telegraph, WordCraft Circle/Native Writers Publication, Vol. 3, #5 & 6 (1995).
• Anthologies and Journals: Watch Out! We’re Talking! (Glide Word Press, 1994); Image and Imagination: Encounters with the Photography of Dorothea Lange (Freedom Voices Press, 1997); Fourteen Hills: The San Francisco State University Review, Vol. 4, #2, (San Francisco State University, 1998); Pacific Vision, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Vol. 11, #1 (Seattle, spring 1998); Spirit in the Words: Moving People Through Poetry (Daimler Chrysler, Vol. 1 & II, 1999, 2000); di-verse-city 2000, Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology (April 2000); My Home as I Remember, literary and artistic anthology of First Nations, Metis, Inuit women (Natural Heritage/Natural History, Toronto 2000).

Recorded album

They’re Calling Us Home, a collection of spoken word and original contemporary music with composer Muhammad Al-Amin (March 1998)

Selected Awards/Honors

• Poet-in-residence, Hedgebrook Writer’s Retreat, Whidbey Island, Washington (1999)
• National Writer’s Union Membership Award (1998)
• Mary TallMountain Award for Poetry & Community Service, San Francisco, California (1996)

Selected Readings

• Leonard Peltier Benefit, The Justice League, San Francisco, California (2001)
• Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, Berkeley, California (2000)
• Autumnal Equinox Festival, Café Cocomo, Native American Cultural Center, San Francisco, California (2000)
• Daimler/Chrysler, “Spirit in the Words” featured poet, The Grill, New York City (2000)
• Austin International Poetry Festival, Barnes & Noble, Border’s Books, The Book Place, Austin, Texas (2000)
• Aboriginal Voices Festival, JUMP! Aboriginal Voices Radio, 106.3FM, Toronto, Canada (2000)
• The World Ground Café, Poetry MC, Mumea Benefit, Oakland, California (2000)
• La Peña Cultural Center, Berkeley, California (2000)
• The Women’s Building, San Francisco, California (2000)
• El Cantada Gallery, Native artist feature, San Francisco, California (2000
  Laney College Gallery, Oakland, California (2000)
• KPOO Radio, San Francisco, California (2000)
• KPFA Radio, Berkeley, California (2000)
• KCEG Youth Radio, feature/Native American History Month, El Cerrito, California (2000)
• Oakland Public Library, Native Culture Day, featured reader, Oakland, California (2000)
• Poetry Mission Mayoral Pick, Laguna Honda Hospital, San Francisco, California (2000)
• A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, Poets in the Schools Feature, San Francisco, California (1999)
• Modern Times Bookstore, San Francisco, California (1999)
• New College of California, Indigenous People’s Day, San Francisco, California (1999)

Teachings & Residencies

• American Indian Education, after-school, Native Author series, Oakland, California (2001)
• 10^th Annual American Indian Education Conference (2000)
• California Poets in the Schools (1999-2000)
• Native American series, classroom presentation, California College of Arts and Crafts (2000)
• University of Creation Spirituality, Oakland, California (2000)
• Native culture, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California (2000)
• Native culture workshops, Borges Ranch, Walnut Creek, California (1998-99)
• Classroom music and poetry performance, Indigenous People’s Day, Redwood City, California (1998-99)
• Coordinator/Assistant, American Indian Education Title IX, (1996-98)
• Native music and poetry weekly performance, Pleasant Endeavors Program, Laguna Honda Hospital, San Francisco, California (1996-97)

Derek Wilson

Derek Wilson is a multimedia artist and lecturer in the Multimedia Studies Program at California State University, Hayward. He has more than ten years’ experience in digital print media, and traditional fine arts. As graphic designer for the Native American Cultural Center’s website, Wilson exhibited a comprehensive understanding and sensitivity to diverse Native American cultures.

RESUME HIGHLIGHTS

Recent media projects

• Websites for alternative bands Base Line Dada and Hoarhound
• Website for Utah Phillips, radio show host and creator of Loafer’s Glory
• Lead artist and Creative for Mega Networks. Designed and developed user interface guidelines and key visual components for “Big Baboon” business-to-business project (2000-2001)
• Art direction and development, Native American Cultural Center website
• Art direction and co-development of the ABC Worldwide Transportation website www.abctrans.com (May 2000)
• Art direction and co-development of Music Express website, www.musicexpress.com (January 2000)
• Art direction, redesign, and development of the Legacy Interactive website, www.legacyinteractive.com (September 1999)

Previous experience

• Apple Computer: OpenDoc website, lead artist for all art collateral (1993)
• Apple Computer: Giants website for keynote speech, lead artist for all art collateral (1994)
• Apple Computer: Cybersmith website for keynote speech, lead artist for all art collateral (1995)
• Starfish Software: sales CD ROM, lead artist for all art collateral (1995)
• Apple Computer: Apple ANAT website, lead artist and designer for interface components (1996)
• Color Graphics: CD ROM showpiece, lead artist for all art collateral (1996)
• Apple Computer: AppleFAST website, lead artist and designer for interface components (1997)
• Safeway Canada: Packaging illustrations, illustrations for new line of products (1997)
• Purple Moon: trading cards and packaging, pre-press production consultant (1998)
• Xerox: copy machine interface, designed and illustrated interface (1999)

Teaching

• Lecturer of Electronic Art, California State University, Hayward (1997-present)
• Lecturer of Extended Education, California State University, Hayward (1998-present)
• Guest Lecture, University of California, Davis (2000 & 2001)
• Senior Lecturer of Electronic Art, California State University, Hayward (2000)
• Technical Trainer, Adobe Systems, AGMA Marketing, Caxtopn, and NYPCA (1995-98)
• Art Instructor, Kings Art Center, Hanford, California (summer 1997 & summer 1998)