Stellar guest speakers on board for this year’s Symposium

(Tahlequah, Okla.)-- The 43rd Annual Symposium on the American Indian will run from April 14 - 18, with an impressive list of guests lined up, ranging from academics and musicians, to a bona fide movie star.

Likely one of the most renowned additions to this years schedule is the presence and participation of Oklahoma-born Wes Studi, acclaimed Cherokee actor who has starred in Hollywood hits like Dances With Wolves and Geronimo: An American Legend.

Studi will be present on April 14 and 15; participating in a Q-and-A following the viewing of the short film he starred in, Ronnie BoDean, and giving the keynote address on the latter day entitled After Avatar.

What I am most happy about is to bring Wes Studi to the Symposiumto have him here, to have him come back home, Alisa Douglas, CTS interim director and student coordinator said.

In 2013, Studi was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museums Hall of Great Western Performers.

Throughout his 30 year career, hes won numerous awards, including several First Americans in the Arts awards and the 2009 Santa Fe Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.

Panel Discussions

Other noteworthy speakers will also be a major part of the Symposium, participating in panel discussions regarding the teaching and revitalization of indigenous languages.

Chumona Deere, has spent many years creating ways for tribal citizens to have access to learning indigenous words and phrases. She has been Mvskoke-fluent in reading and writing since childhood and will be part of a panel discussing Teaching Indigenous Languages onWednesday, April 15.

Also on that panel is Kevin J Roberts-Fields, Nokos-mekkoce Yvholv, of the Mvskoke (Creek & Seminole), Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations of Oklahoma, with kinship ties to the Sahnish or Arikara people of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota.

He is an advocate for indigenous language and culture revitalization and a proponent for the establishment of language immersion environments.

The Indigenous Languages Documentation & Revitalization Seminar will take place on both Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17, with Colleen Fitzgerald, professor of linguistics and director of the Native American Languages Lab at the University of Texas as part of the panel on both days.

She earned her doctorate in linguistics at the University of Arizona, where she first started work with the Tohono O'odham language community. For more than 20 years, Fitzgerald has worked with Native American tribes to document and revitalize their languages.

Concert

In addition to the educational opportunities provided by the Symposium, there will also be a free concertonFriday, April 17, featuring talented musical artist, Samantha Crain. She will perform in the University Center Ballroom at7 p.m.

A member of the Choctaw Nation, Crain grew up in the small town of Shawnee, dabbling in painting and trying her hand at writing short stories.When she became intrigued by the notion of writing songs, Crain reworked a series of stories shed written while taking creative writing classes at Oklahoma Baptist University, into the songs she then recorded for her self-released EP,The Confiscation: A Musical Novella.

Registration for events during the Symposium is not required. Attendees are invited to participate free of charge.

The Center for Tribal Studies has more than 30 guests scheduled to participate this year.