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Arts & Culture

Stories about the arts and culture.

First Alaskans Institute Helps Revive Yup’ik Traditional Qasgiq Teachings At Cama-i

By Christine Trudeau • Mar 16, 2018
Starting at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 16 at Bethel Regional High School in classrooms C-22 and C-23, a men's and women's house qasgiq will be hosted by First Alaskans Institute, with Torin Jacobs [left] hosting the men's house and Andrea Sand
Christine Trudeau / KYUK

 

For the first time ever, this year's Cama-i Dance Festival will have traditional Yup'ik talking and healing circles for men and women on opening day. KYUK’s Christine Trudeau reports that the space will be ready tonight at Bethel Regional High School at 6 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Cama-i 2018 Honors Its Roots

By • Mar 7, 2018
The Toksook Bay dance group performs at the 2016 Cama-i Festival in Bethel.
Dean Swope / KYUK

In the 1980s, a gathering of a few traditional village dance groups in Bethel started what may now be the world's largest gathering of Alaska Native dancers: the Cama-i Dance Festival. The elders that kept the drums pounding through the generations remain the roots of this tradition, and in less than two weeks the drums will beat again. KYUK sat down with two of the Cama-i organizers to discuss how this year’s festival honors its foundation.


Meet The Y-K Delta's 2018 Mrs. Alaska Contestant

By Teresa Cotsirilos • Mar 5, 2018
Alissa Nadine Rogers will represent the Y-K Delta in this year's Mrs. Alaska pageant.
Teresa Cotsirilos/KYUK

Yukon-Kuksokwim Delta residents should keep an eye on the Mrs. Alaska United States pageant this year. In April, Bethel’s very own Alissa Nadine Rogers will represent her community and compete against women throughout the state. She hopes to use the pageant to advocate for a new resource management center in Bethel, where people from the region can come together to reconcile longstanding conflicts over wealth, land and resources.

Bethel Gives NEA Chairman A Whirlwind Tour of Yup'ik Art

By Teresa Cotsirilos • Feb 27, 2018
Museum curator Ben Charles, NEA Chairman Jane Chu, and Alaska State Council on the Arts Chair Benjamin Brown tour the Bethel Cultural Center's museum.
Teresa Cotsirilos/KYUK

Federal and state officials made a whirlwind tour of Yukon-Kuskokwim culture last weekend. National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu landed in Bethel on Saturday and spent the day trudging through the snow, looking at Yup'ik art.


It's Been Sitting On Shelves For Decades. Now KYUK Wants It's Video Collection Preserved.

By • Feb 15, 2018
Former KYUK General Manager John McDonald has begun the long process of organizing, cataloguing, and packing the KYUK 5,000-piece video collection for shipment to Anchorage where they'll be preserved. He is pictured here in the KYUK television studio on F
Anna Rose MacArthur / KYUK

Inside KYUK, tucked deep in the station, sits the world’s largest collection of videos documenting life in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. No one knows what all 5,000 tapes contain. The cataloguing is inconsistent, and the hours of footage are uncounted. But the station believes that it’s all important and is taking steps to save it.


Bethel, Indigenous People Get Shout-Out From Grammy Stage

By • Jan 30, 2018
When the Alaskan band Portugal. The Man won a Grammy for Best Pop Song on January 28, 2018, they gave a shout-out to Bethel and Alaska's indigenous people during their acceptance speech.
Screenshot

On Sunday, the band Portugal. The Man won Best Pop Song for its hit “Feel It Still.” Band members come from Wasilla and the Mat-Su Borough. Founding member Zach Carothers proudly claimed his Alaska roots in his acceptance speech.

Community Organizers Work To Use StoryCorps App In Bethel

By Christine Trudeau • Jan 25, 2018
Grady Deaton (left) with the Kuskokwim Consortium Library, and Adrian Wagner (right) with 4-H Cooperative Extension have teamed up to train young people on how to preserve cultural histories by using the StoryCorps smartphone app in Bethel.
Christine Trudeau / KYUK

Bethel Community organizers want to train Y-K Delta youths to gather stories and traditional knowledge using the latest technology available on cell phones. Adrian Wagner with 4-H Cooperative Extension and Grady Deaton with the Kuskokwim Consortium Library have teamed up to train young people on how to use the StoryCorps smartphone app in Bethel. KYUK’s Education Reporter Christine Trudeau sat down with the pair after their first of three workshops with local youth at the Bethel Library. StoryCorps was formed years ago by public radio producer David Isay. Wagner and Deaton tell us more.

 

 

 

 

 


KYUK's Yup’ik Word Of The Week Goes Digital

By Teresa Cotsirilos • Jan 23, 2018
Courtesy of KYUK

KYUK’s Yup’ik Word of the Week is entering the digital age. Students from the Ayaprun Yup’ik Immersion School are helping to produce a series of colorful, animated videos that can be shared on social media, each of which explains the meaning of a different Yup’ik word.

Meet The Y-K Delta's New Arctic Youth Ambassadors

By Teresa Cotsirilos • Jan 23, 2018
Courtesy of the Alaska Geographic Field Institute, Katie Basile/KYUK

Two young adults from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have been selected to serve as youth ambassadors to the Arctic Council.

Over the next two years, Kate McWilliams and Ben Hunter-Francis II will attend high-level meetings around the world and discuss the Arctic’s changing ecosystem. For both McWilliams and Hunter-Francis II, the ambassadorship gives them a chance to focus on climate change and look for solutions.

Orthodox And Non-Orthodox Christians Gather To Celebrate Slaviq

By • Jan 8, 2018
Katie Basile / KYUK

Eastern Orthodox Christians around the world began celebrating Slaviq on Sunday. The feast day celebrates Christmas according to the old Julian calendar. In the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the festivities last a week and meld Yup’ik and Orthodox traditions. KYUK joined the morning service in Bethel.


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