Latest news with #AhtnaAthabascan
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Comedy, community, and the evening star
In a corner of Seattle where laughter meets resistance and rhythm becomes ritual, a star arose. Their name is dk echo-hawk, but you can also call them by their stage name — the evening star. A celestial being, more closely related to a mountain than a pronoun, but they will accept they, them, she and her. The little Athabascan and Pawnee kid playing in the woods in Alaska has grown into a comedian, musician, DJ, writer, visual artist, host and founder of Indigik'were, formerly known as Indigequeer. As a kid they grew up as an Ahtna Athabascan between a small Mendaesde village and their school in Delta Junction, Alaska. There was joy, and there was a lot of grief carried through generational trauma, according to echo-hawk. During the Native boarding school era government agents forcibly abducted Native children and sent them to what they called 'boarding schools' hundreds of miles away to places where physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual abuse and neglect were experienced in an effort to 'kill the Indian, save the man' from 1891 until 1978. The generational impact on the mental and spiritual health of of those who experienced the cultural genocide of the 'boarding schools' has often resulted in addiction and high suicide rates among them and their descendants all across Native country. In a chat in June 2023 with Joey Clift about Native comedy, echo-hawk explained that their favorite Native comedy is 'the thing that my auntie would say at probably a funeral that was the most inappropriate thing you ever heard but you were weeping 10 seconds before that. Now, you're laughing as hard as you possibly can.' Clift is an award-winning comedy writer and Cowlitz Indian Tribe citizen. 'I admired the aunties who make people laugh after crying because that's what I wanted to do,' echo-hawk told MoPOP + RIZE. He went on to explain that understanding and making the people around him laugh wasn't just natural for the aunties, it was something that lifted their entire community culturally. 'Performing in the village is like culture,' echo-hawk said. 'You don't do it for money, you just do it because you and your hundred friends need to have a good night, and it's 40 below outside.' When echo-hawk began getting paid for their comedy in Seattle, they held a mirror up to the world and did not hold back. The history and ongoing genocidal actions against Native people were reflected back to the audience. The style of comedy that echo-hawk became known for, was coined 'punish comedy.' While it was satisfying to watch white Seattlites squirm during their sets, echo-hawk said that comedy in this format became difficult for their mental health. 'I got kind of famous real fast and I was not ready,' echo-hawk said. 'I am thankful that somewhere in my head I consciously knew that if I pursued this, I might die. I just felt very ungrounded and was falling apart and thankfully had some wherewithal to not do that. But I do understand that it was really empowering. I'm ultimately very impressed with what I was able to do.' Comedy has been both a weapon and salve. A method of navigating a world on fire and pulling others through with a glittery wink and a red rose colored grin. They pivoted to focus on Indigik'were and their music. 'It is hilarious, it's silly, it's sexy,' echohawk said of Indigik'were. 'There's mistakes, there's mirrors on stage, and I change on stage, and there's altars, and roses, and cheese whiz.' Indigik'were started in 2022 because echo-hawk wanted a place to feel free to be their authentic self. The first Indigik'were event invited attendees to, 'shake their asses like Columbus never sailed the ocean blue,' and has continued to showcase queer and trans Indigenous joy through their events. It has brought Native people who were also in need of community joy together and has had a larger impact than echo-hawk ever imagined. 'People have told me that the spaces I bring are healing and helped them when they were suicidal or helped them when they had been assaulted and helped them find community and family,' echo-hawk said. 'But when it was starting to happen, I was still just a deeply traumatized kid, and that felt like so much responsibility. I didn't want to be a leader. I just wanted to have a village again.' And that's exactly what they began building. Comedy is naturally interwoven into the event planning for Indigik'were in a way that could only come from , including celebrating the anniversary of the death of U.S. Cavalry commander George Armstrong Custer. Custer launched a surprise attack against an encampment of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho along the Little Bighorn River in 1876 and was struck down by a Cheyenne woman. echo-hawk's celebration of the death of Custer included a piñata with Custer's likeness. 'I went to the Battle of the Little Bighorn Reenactment when I was f*cking 13 or something on the road to f*cking Oklahoma and was like, 'Yeah, b*tch!'' echo-hawk said. 'My dad, my big Native dad and me were cheering as Custer got killed. That's just the kind of Native that I am.' 'It's just ingrained in my being to celebrate the death of colonizers always,' echo-hawk continued. '…and I found that humor is the best way to keep a crowd happy and moving and to feel like they're in good hands. Being a host is probably my strongest quality.' If you've ever been to any of their comedy or Indigik'were events, you'd likely agree. There is always an elaborate storytelling element that shocks, disarms and gets you laughing. 'There's active genocides all over the place,' echo-hawk said. 'There are people who are just trying to recover from those genocides, witnessing other genocides. There are people who went through a genocide, now genocideing. There's all sorts of wild things happening. I don't know how everybody else is processing it without doing crazy things like I'm doing. [Indigik'were] is somatics for me, it's spiritual. It is deeply important to me.' echo-hawk encourages others to also discover what truly ignites their passion and defiant spirit, something deeply personal and entirely their own — to do what makes you feel free. 'Every day I get to wake up and ask myself, what would the evening star like to look like today?,' echo-hawk said. 'How would I like to be free today? What would I like to try? And the more and more I do that, the more and more I dance, the more and more I sweat, the more I eat healthy and the more and more I don't have to block out parts of life. I have enough space in myself to feel and I highly recommend it. It's doable. It's not easy all the time, but it is doable. I promise you.' the evening star's next appearance is called Hot Wet Native Summer in Juneau, Alaska for the Lingit AANI Pride Festival. 'As many in this world continue to fight against the beautiful path we are on, it is vital that we come together and show each other our beauty and our strength, to be a testament that we are unconquered!,' an Instagram post shares. The full length interview can be found here. The interviews were video and audio recorded and saved in the MoPop Online Collections Vault with over 1,000 others. : In collaboration with MoPop for their 'WA Untold Pop Culture Stories' series, MoPop wanted to focus on the stories of King County pop culture creators in order to ensure that a more accurate representation of culture artists in America are preserved for future generations. RIZE came to this project hoping to bring varying Indigenous stories, identities and perspectives to the forefront. Oral histories are traditionally how many Indigenous people have passed down culture, customs, and tradition. Through this series, we explore pop culture voices of Indigenous creators in what is now Washington state.
CBC
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Growing up, these Indigenous creators didn't see themselves on kids' TV. So they made their own
Yatibaey Evans, an Ahtna Athabascan from Mentasta, Alaska, grew up watching Sesame Street on TV at her grandparents' house. One of its catchy jingles still plays in her mind. "Even to this day when I hear some numbers, I'll sing to myself — 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12,'" Evans told Unreserved' s Rosanna Deerchild. For over five decades, Sesame Street has entertained and educated millions of children through its loveable characters like Elmo and Big Bird, teaching valuable lessons on everything from counting to empathy. But with Warner Bros. Discovery's recent decision not to renew its deal for new episodes, its future remains uncertain. While Evans, like many children, has fond memories of programs like Sesame Street, she rarely, if ever, saw her own culture be reflected in them. This realization led her to a career focused on bringing Indigenous stories to children. She is the creative producer of the series Molly of Denali, a co-production with PBS Kids and CBC Kids. It follows the life and adventures of 10-year-old Molly Mabray, an Alaska Native girl living with her family in the Alaskan village of Qyah. "I really felt the need to go and share about who we are as Indigenous people because there's so many amazing things that we contribute and have contributed over thousands of years to our world," Evans said. Unfortunately, for generations, according to the digital media literacy non-profit MediaSmarts, Indigenous ways of knowing and being have been misrepresented or erased from popular media. Instead, programs often perpetuate colonial narratives and creating harmful stereotypes. This misrepresentation can deeply affect young Indigenous people, leading to lifelong struggles with self-esteem and identity, a 2024 National Library of Medicine study says. That's why positive and accurate representations in children's media are so important, says Evans. "[Kids] can [know] that they can share their foods, their languages, their clothing, their way of being with the world, and that it will be accepted, appreciated and learned from, and they can take pride in who they are," she said. Taking back what was taken With Alaska Native representation at every level of the creative process, Molly of Denali works to ensure that the cultural diversity of Alaska's 229 tribes is accurately represented. A key feature is its focus on language; for many Alaska Natives, the journey to reclaim their languages has been a painful one, steeped in centuries of forced assimilation. "During the boarding school era, Alaska Native and Indigenous people across the nation were told that if we spoke our languages that we would be punished," said Evans. Native American boarding schools across the U.S. sought to assimilate Indigenous children into white society. At these government-funded and often church-run institutions, children were forcibly removed from their families, prohibited from speaking their Native American languages and often abused. Molly of Denali incorporates the Gwich'in language, helping young Alaska Natives reclaim and value their cultural heritage. "[We're] helping bring them back because they never went away. People still spoke [their language] in their homes," said Evans. Inspiring children to talk about Indigenous identity The importance of cultural representation also resonates with Eric Jackson, a creator from the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. His animated series Chums, set in pre-contact Turtle Island, follows a young girl named Flies with Eagles and her group of furry friends who help other animals in unexpected adventures. Airing on APTN and Citytv Saskatchewan, the show teaches children about patience, acceptance and being proud of where you come from. It also piques curiosity and inspires children to engage with cultural activities like rock painting, dancing, cooking and mending teepees. Jackson says they approach it in a way that's easy for a child to "ask questions about it and go to their elders to inquire more." He follows in the footsteps of his parents, who addressed the lack of Indigenous representation in media with their 2007 children's show Wapos Bay. Passing it onto the next generation Brent Beauchamp, an animator from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, says he was shaped by the women in his family — particularly his older sister Emmaline, who had a hand in raising him. He created the short film Follow that's toured film festivals worldwide to honour Emmaline's own motherhood, and to share the importance of matriarchs in Indigenous families. "Women in our communities play a huge role, especially being from Six Nations and the Haudenosaunee people.… Historically, women not only raised and taught children, but they also controlled lands," said Beauchamp, who is Onondaga/Haudenosaunee on his mother's side and Algonquin/Anishinaabe on his father's side. "They had so much power in our communities." Follow tells the story of Nimkii, a young child who is lured away from their mother by a shape-shifting spirit. Emmaline, who translated Brent's script into Anishinaabemowin and voiced Nimkii's mother, says the work was deeply meaningful. As a high school teacher, she shared the film with her students to inspire them to tell their own stories, and embrace their artistic passions. "If that's something you have a passion for, there's programs and places where you can be successful and have a living doing that," she said. She sees her role as a commitment to carrying forward the work of their elders and fluent speakers who have safeguarded and maintained the language.
