It’s been great, hasn’t it? Talk about a showcase for indigenous performers. Every night, we’d think the show at the First Nations Pavilion couldn’t possibly match the previous night’s – but it always did.

Tonight’s performance is called “The Road Forward” with Evan Adams, Pura Fe’, Leela Gilday, Byron Chief Moon, Jennifer Kreisberg, Michelle St. John and Kevin Loring.

Adams is an actor featured in “Smoke Signals” (He said: “Some days, it’s a good day to die. Some days, it’s a good day to have breakfast.”) and now is a physician serving aboriginal communities. Watch a video interview with him here.

Pura Fe’ and Jennifer Kresiberg, both Tuscarora, sing with the a capella women’s group Ulali. See previous post with video, here.

Actor, artist and dancer Byron Chief Moon is Blood and Cree, and also is a Two-Spirit person. Watch an interview with him here.

Leela Gilday (video above) is a North Slavey Dene singer with a big, big voice from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Here‘s her MysSpace page.

Michelle St. John, who is Cree, has starred in several films, including 1989′s “Where the Spirit Lives,” about aboriginal children being removed from their homes. Watch an excerpt below.

Kevin Loring of Vancouver is a member of the Nlaka’pamux First Nation. His first play, “Where the Blood Mixes,” won second prize in the Canada-wide Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition a couple of years ago. Check out an excerpt here.

Enjoy, and let’s keep looking for all of the artists featured in the last two weeks.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Smoke Signals", 2010 Winter Games, Blood Tribe, buffalo post, Byron Chief Moon, Cree, Dene, Evan Adams, First Nations, First Nations Pavilion, Gwen Florio, Herman Voaden National Playwriting Competition, Jennifer Kreisberg, Kevin Loring, Leela Gilday, Michelle St. John, Native American news, Nlaka’pamux First Nation, Pura Fe', Tuscarora, Two spirit, Ulali, Vancouver Olympics, Where the Spirit Lives

Pamela Paul-Jacobs

As the high-publicity fights over offensive team names like the Washington Redskins (that case now goes to the Supreme Court) or the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux (a deadline looms on that name’s fate) shows, the issue is fraught.

Tuscarora Principal Pamela Paul-Jacobs – who says she is of Lumbee and Waccamaw Siouan ancestry – wants to avoid that sort of mess at all costs, according to this Washington Post story.

“I want to pay respect to the Tuscaroras’ heritage. I don’t want to create controversy,” she says.

She put up a Web poll inviting suggestions from future students of Tuscarora, which opens next year. The top three? The Huskies, the Timber Wolves and the Tribe.

Paul-Jacobs then consulted Teresa Morris, founder of the Coastal Carolina Indian Center and a descendant of Tuscarora Indians, who remained in North Carolina. Morris says she was honored that the school community chose the name Tuscarora but felt that “to go beyond that could border into disrespect, intended or not,” Paul-Jacob tells the Post.

And, Clif Morton, of the Wisconsin Indian Education Association Mascot and Logo task force, suggests a “locker test.” Say it’s homecoming, and your high school team is known as “the Tribe.” How do you decorate your locker?

Too often, he says, that decorations devolves into tomahawk-and-war paint stereotypes.

Paul-Jacobs has since replaced Tribe with the fourth runner-up, the Tigers.

Gwen Florio

Tags: Coastal Carolina Indian Center, Tuscarora, Wisconsin Indian Education Association