Piece Description

A dramatic story of a culture saving its lost art and history comes to life with in the special edition of Koahnic Broadcast Corporation's national program, Earthsongs. This one-hour radio documentary project, set to release in November 2008, stems from a partnership with United States Artist (USA) Rockefeller Fellow and George Peabody Award-Winning Artist, Dmae Roberts and Koahnic's Earthsongs Host and Producer, Shyanne Beatty. The documentary details the long-sought return of the Alutiiq Masks from France to Kodiak. In the winter of 1872, a French anthropologist, Alphonse Pinart, traveled the Kodiak archipelago, assembling one of the world?s most extensive collections of Alutiiq ceremonial masks, and brought them back to France. In May, 2008, 34 of these Alutiiq ceremonial masks were returned to their people and exhibited at The Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alaska. The documentary features artists who helped make the return possible and unveils secrets of the masks that unlocked song, stories and forgotten language once thought lost. The complex, sound-rich production features triptych storytelling, compelling interviews and music from Kodiak Island where Alutiiq/Sugpiaq peoples are undergoing a cultural renaissance. Dmae Roberts (www.dmaeroberts.com) is a two-time Peabody award-winning radio producer living in Portland, OR. She won the USA fellowship and the Asian American Journalists Association's award for civil rights and social justice. She won her second Peabody for her eight-hour Asian American history series, Crossing East. Shyanne Beatty is Hangwichin Athabascan who grew up in a subsistence lifestyle in Eagle, Alaska where the Yukon River meets the Alaska/Canadian border. She began her career in 1999 as a Production Assistant fellow for Koahnic Broadcast Corporation. She is now Koahnic?s traveling media instructor and weekly host of Earthsongs. Koahnic Broadcast Corporation (www.knba.org), the country's leading Native media enterprise, operates four divisions: KNBA 90.3 FM, the country's only urban, Native public radio station; national radio programming including National Native News, Earthsongs and Native America Calling; and Native Voice One (NV1), the Native American radio service.