Tag: Hopi videos

Dan Namingha: Seeking Center in Two Worlds

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi art, Hopi artists, Hopi films1 Comment

Last night I came across this 26 minute video on Tewa-Hopi artist Dan Namingha from Polacca titled “Seeking Center in Two Worlds.” From what I can tell, the video was produced in August 1992 and it was shown on various PBS affiliated stations. Here is the video summary on the KNME Chanel 5 (Albuquerque, NM) website:

Life is a balance for painted and sculptor Dan Namingha. Balance between the high stakes art world and his American Indian origins; balance between his distinctive abstract painting and sculpting, and his expression of the ideas and concepts of his native religion; and balance between his Hopi and Tewa origins and the dominant Anglo culture. Only thirty-four years old, Namingha uses traditional themes and concepts in his unique modern vision to communicate an essence of something beyond himself, something deeply spiritual and universally direct.

If “Seeking Center in Two Worlds” is of interest to you,  then I would suggest seeing Allan Holzman’s film “Beautiful Resistance,” which examines the Indian boarding school experience through contemporary American Indian art, including works by Hopi artist Michael Kabotie. I have written about this film in a previous post. Holzman was also the director and co-executive producer of “Beyond the Mesas.”

Running Spirit by Hopi video producer Alexander D. Chapin

On By Matthew Sakiestewa GilbertIn Hopi artists, Hopi films, Hopi Runners2 Comments

I came across an interesting YouTube video on running by Hopi video producer Alexander D. Chapin. The video appeared on YouTube in November 2010. I do not know much about Chapin, except that he has produced a number of short videos on-line. A few years ago, Chapin discovered interview tapes of his grandfather James (Jimmy) S. Kewanwytewa and he used a section of the interview on running to make Running Spirit. Kewanwytewa was from Orayvi on Third Mesa. Some people consider him to be the most famous Hopi kachina carver of the twentieth century. In addition to carving, he spent several years working with zoologist Harold S. Colton, co-founder of the Museum of Northern Arizona, to identify a large collection of kachina dolls. Below is the YouTube commentary that goes with the video:

I recently (2009) obtained an audio recording of my Great Grandfather Jimmy Kewanwytewa. In this recording I chose one of the stories he told and composed music to it.

My Great Grandfather was Hopi Indian and was known for being a talented distance runner. So in this story he tells about a time when he was headed home from work and saw someone running ahead of him, so he thought he would go an catch up with that person on his way home.

But the entire way to the Oraibi village, as talented as a runner that my great grandfather was said to be, he could not catch up with that person. Afterwards he told his father what happened and his father laughed at him and told him the same thing happen to him one time, and that he was never going to catch that person because that person was a spirit.

I created this video for the song in a rush so I could share this song with everyone but hope to produce a better video in the future.

Watch & listen or just listen & enjoy my most accomplished musical composition to date.

Thank you.

Shot & Edited by Alexander D. Chapin
Alexander D. C. Productions