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Radio program details return of artifacts, cultural renaissance

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A dramatic story of a culture saving its lost art and
history comes to life in the special edition of Koahnic Broadcast
Corporation’s national program, Earthsongs.

This one-hour radio documentary project, set to release in November, stems
from a partnership with United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow and George
Peabody Award-winning artist Dmae Roberts and Koahnic’s Earthsongs, hosted
and produced by Shyanne Beatty.

The documentary details the long-sought return of the Alutiiq masks from
France to Kodiak. In the winter of 1872, French anthropologist Alphonse
Pinart traveled the Kodiak archipelago, assembled one of the world’s most
extensive collections of Alutiiq ceremonial masks and took them to France.
In May, 34 of these Alutiiq ceremonial masks were returned to their people
and exhibited at The Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak.

The documentary features artists who helped make the return possible and
unveils secrets of the masks that unlocked song, stories and ancestral
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.

In honor of Alaska Native/American Indian Heritage Month in November, this
special edition of Earthsongs will be distributed free to stations by
Native Voice One. Downloads are available on ContentDepot and PRX. For more
information, call Burt Poley at (505) 277.5354 or e-mail
bpoley@... e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you
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This program was presented by Dmae Roberts, Shyanne Beatty.

Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning radio producer living in
Portland, Ore. 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
titled “Crossing East.”

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 weekly host of Earthsongs. For
more information and downloads, visit:
http://earthsongs.net/cominghome/stations.html .