Schools

Artist Brings Native American Heritage Day to Perpich

Visiting artist Mark Erickson brings singing and drumming to the arts high school.

Editor's Note: The following content was submitted by Dan Markworth, a member of Perpich's communications department.

While much of the country knows the day after Thanksgiving to be Black Friday, since 2008, the day is also known it as Native American Heritage Day.

While students all over the country learn about the Pilgrims and the Indians and the first Thanksgiving, not all schools go on to teach more about the Native American culture of today.

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So many schools, like Golden Valley's , celebrate their own Native American Heritage Day.

On Tuesday, artist Mark Erickson visited the school to sing and drum traditional Native American music.  He explained some of the traditional songs and talked about creating new traditional songs for Pow Wows.

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Erickson was awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant in 2008 to compose new traditional songs for Pow Wows and to teach the new songs to young people.  He has been a mentor to many people in the region for the last 20 years.

Arts High student Rachel Strom is Native American and was moved by the performance, saying she believed she knew the person who made Erickson's drum.

Erickson's ancestral roots are from the Red Lake and White Earth bands of Chippewa, in northwest Minnesota.  His father was from Red lake, a native speaker of the Ojibwa language, and a follower of the ancient Anishabe spiritual culture.  His mother was a mixed blood from White Earth Reservation, who spoke some of the language, but spoke English primarily.

Erickson was adopted as a infant, and grew up in the Lake Vermilion area with a Swedish American family. He has been studying the Chippewa culture and traditions since high school. He became a traditional singer and dancer, and has learned hundreds of songs from the culture. 

Erickson participated in the Twin Cities Native Arts Festival last summer in Minneapolis, participated in a hand drum singing contest and took third place amongst his peers. He's also performed with Natalie Merchant at an Earth Day concert.


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