A TALK WITH JUSTIN BEATTY

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1 AT 1:00PM

SUGGESTED DONATION $5-$50, SLIDING SCALE*

ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TO THE NCFA COMMUNITY FUND

TICKET LINK COMING SOON!

Native American art, culture, and education each have places where they are the focus of creation, discussion, and practice. The modern intertribal powwow is a space where they intersect and engage. It often serves as hub for the transmission of intergenerational cultural knowledge, the reclamation of traditional practices, and the display of evolutionary changes in cultural art.

In this presentation, Justin Beatty, a member of the Native American community, founder of the Odenong Powwow, and powwow participant for over five decades will give an overview of the modern intertribal powwow and how participants drive the transmission and evolution of cultural arts and knowledge between tribal members, tribal communities, and the general public. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session and information about upcoming powwows and events that are open to the public.

*All proceeds from this event will go towards the Community Fund. This fund supports community members in accessing NCFA spaces and programs. Payments on the upper end of the scale help support our ongoing commitment to accessibilty and sliding scale models.

Justin Beatty (Ojibwe/Occaneechi Saponi/African-American) is a powwow emcee, powwow singer, former powwow dancer, founder of the Odenong Powwow, cultural educator, and multidisciplinary artist. Currently living in western Massachusetts, Justin has been a part of the Native community in the Northeast for over 50 years. He began his journey as a powwow emcee in the early 1990s while attending the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, training under noted emcees Bruce “Star” Curliss (Nipmuc) and Francis Huntington (Oneida). Since then, he has emceed powwows and events throughout New England for federally recognized tribes, schools and colleges, and Native-run organizations. He is the current returning emcee for the Aquinnah Wampanoag Annual Powwow, Brown University Powwow, UMass-Boston Annual Powwow, the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival, Native American Lifelines Winter Health Fair and Annual HIV/AIDS Awareness Round Dance, among many other events. Justin holds a B.A. in Indigenous Policy, Culture, & Art, a self-designed curriculum and degree program through the UWW Department at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

As a powwow singer, Justin has been a member of several Native American intertribal drum groups. He was a founding member of Rolling Deep, started in the 1990s at UMass-Amherst, and is a founding member, lead singer, and Drum Keeper for Urban Thunder, the first intertribal powwow drum group ever recorded for a video game, BioShock: Infinite. Urban Thunder was also featured in the film Crooked Arrows. Justin currently sings with RezDogs and Iron River and often sits in with other drum groups at powwows throughout New England. He was also a noted powwow dancer for over two decades, dancing Men’s Fancy Bustle and Grass Dance. As a multidisciplinary artist, Justin’s work has been featured in exhibitions, videos, music, commercials, television shows, and documentaries, including the Mead Art Museum’s “Boundless” exhibition, the Town of Athol’s “Windows on Main” mural project, 50 Arrow Gallery’s Flat Files and Ekphrastic Poetry exhibitions, and Paper City Clothing Company’s November Red and Abstract Black exhibitions. He was nominated for a Los Angeles Music Award in 2007 as a member of the band NewMerika.