CELEBRATION 2024: WHAT’S NEW?

Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) will sponsor several new associated events during Celebration 2024, which will be held June 5-8 in Juneau.

Juried Film Festival

For the first time, SHI is sponsoring a Juried Film Festival at Celebration. Jurors chose four films from 10 submissions to show during the event. SHI will announce the winners and their film titles at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 5, in the clan house at SHI’s Walter Soboleff Building, which will also include awards for the Juried Art Show and Competition and the Juried Youth Art Exhibit.

Jurors were Ed Littlefield, a Tlingit percussionist, educator and composer, and Frank Katasse, a Tlingit actor, director, producer, improviser, educator and playwright.

The films will be shown at 6 p.m., Friday, June 7, at the Gold Town Theater, located at 171 Shattuck Way, Suite 109, inside the Emporium Mall.

Premiere of Tlingit Macbeth

SHI will premiere the film “Tlingit Macbeth,” which was written by William Shakespeare and translated into Tlingit by Johnny Marks during his time at the institute. The play was conceived of and directed by Anita Maynard-Losh of Perseverance Theatre and performed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington D.C. in 2007. Sealaska hired a film crew to document the performance and SHI recently acquired a grant to edit the final program, which was produced by Morgan Howard Productions and will debut during Celebration.

The production was set in the context of the Tlingit culture, fusing Shakespeare’s words with the language, music, dancing and visual design of the region’s first peoples.

SHI will premiere the film at 5 p.m., Thursday, June 6, at Gold Town Theater.

Elder Photo Booth

SHI will have a photo booth at Centennial Hall in the Elders’ Room to document Elders attending Celebration. Elders ages 65 and older are welcome to partake in this service wearing regalia or street clothes. The images may be used by SHI for educational and cultural purposes. Elders will receive a copy of their portrait after Celebration.

Blanket Toss

SHI will sponsor an Indigenous skin blanket toss during Celebration 2024. The toss is traditionally a feature of Native Youth Olympics (sometimes called Traditional Games), an annual event where athletes compete in events that are based on the hunting and survival skills of the Indigenous peoples of Alaska and across the Arctic going back thousands of years.

Today, the blanket toss is done for fun, but traditionally it was used in the Arctic to allow a hunter to see across the horizon to hunt game. The objective is to stay balanced and not fall over.

The event is scheduled for 11:40 a.m., Thursday, June 6, at the Sealaska Heritage Arts Campus plaza.

Cultural Orientation, Viewing of Chilkat Robes

SHI President Rosita Worl, Ph.D., will give an orientation on Southeast Alaska Native cultures. The presentation is meant to give people a general overview of the complex cultures and societies of the region’s first peoples.

Dr. Worl’s Tlingit names are Yeidiklas’akw and Ḵaaháni, and she is Ch’áak’ (Eagle) moiety of the Shangukeidí­ (Thunderbird) clan from the Kawdliyaayi Hít (House Lowered from the Sun) in Klukwan. She is also an anthropologist who has received many honors, including the American Anthropological Association’s Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology.

Worl’s orientation will be paired with a viewing of two old Chilkat robes recently acquired by SHI. One of the robes was purchased at auction by private donors who gave the piece to SHI in February. This robe is thought to be at least 150 years old. The other is on loan to SHI by the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, which sent the piece to Juneau in May.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a private nonprofit founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. Its goal is to promote cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding through public services and events. SHI also conducts social scientific and public policy research that promotes Alaska Native arts, cultures, history and education statewide. The institute is governed by a Board of Trustees and guided by a Council of Traditional Scholars, a Native Artist Committee and a Southeast Regional Language Committee.

CONTACT: Kathy Dye, SHI Communications and Publications Deputy Director, 907.321.4636, kathy.dye@sealaska.com.

Caption: TV’s Eskimo Ninja Nick Hanson of NBC’s hit show “American Ninja Warrior” kicks off the blanket toss at the 2020 Traditional Games in Juneau. Photo by Lyndsey Brollini, courtesy of Sealaska Heritage Institute. Note: Media outlets are welcome to use this photo for coverage of this story. For a higher resolution image, contact kathy.dye@sealaska.com