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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 15, 2003)
Smoke Signals 5 JANUARY 15, 2003 icki Free Concert Rocked Cherokee and Comanche singer, songwriter showed why he is NAMA's 2002 "Best Male Artist." By Ron Karten Micki Free's Oregon fans enjoyed a blast from present and past at the Education Division gymnasium in Grand Ronde, where the artist formerly with Shalamar performed just before Christmas. His on-stage and in-the-audience performance included covers from the best work of The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix as well as his own award-winning song, Wounded Knee. Joined on stage by bassist Jon Brant, a Cheap Trick band member from 1981-87, and drummer Dennis Tieken, who has played with blues artist Buddy Guy, and whose doffed shirt and flying, long, straight, blond hair brought both the sounds and sights of big name Rock & Roll to town. "We all had a wonderful time there," said Free in a post concert email. "The people made us feel like we were playing for old friends. . .It moved me to feel such love from total strangers. . .we can't wait to come back to our friends there." Discovered by Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss in the 1980s, Free has worked with Diana Ross, Prince and Janet Jackson, and he wrote music for movies including "Beverly Hills Cop" (winning a Grammy for "Best Album of an Original Score Written for a Mo tion Picture") and "Footloose." Learn more about Free at his website: wwwmickifree.com, and take a look at "Cherokee Free's Na tive American Jewelry" and "True Native," companies through which W Micki Free Free sells Native American jewelry and clothing at www.cherokeefrees.com. PBS Broadcasts Navajo Documentary Rocks with Wings soars with honesty and respect. Movie Review By Ron Karten Rocks with Wings, a sports documen tary about a Navajo high school girls' basketball team that ultimately wins a state championship, is more than that. It seeks meaning from competi tion and harmony, race and tradition, societal expectations and even in the way it is made, about respect. "I was watching a creation story, a resurrection story, a mythological story unveiling in front of my eyes and no one would believe me," said director Rick Derby about the ten plus years he put into this work. Derby is an in dependent in the New York City film and video industry who also edits tape for Turner Broadcasting and Dateline NBC. "This is a keyhole glance into the universe through a basketball pro gram in a small community. The story follows Jerry Richardson, an African American basketball star who leaves college in Texas without finding a professional team. Instead, he accepts a seemingly downbeat job coaching a losing girls' basketball team in Shiprock, New Mexico, a small town where, according to the director, the high school was run by Mormons and served a Navajo reservation. The community does not know Richardson's skin color until he ar rives, the kind of detail that opens the issue without pouring kerosene on it. "They needed a teacher," Richardson says in the film, "and I couldn't afford to go home." There are a lot of directions in which New York City director Derby could have taken the story at this point, but he sticks with basketball. "What makes (the story) so unusual," said Derby, "it's not about victimization .... While it's necessary that the truth be told, Rocks is one of the first that tells a story of resurrection. This is a con temporary story that Native Ameri cans can get their hands on and em brace. I was reaching for emotional sovereignty. What good is it if you get your land back if you are still emotion ally oppressed?" Head Coach Richardson is high strung and his competitive spirit comes into conflict with a Native com munity spirit that is about harmony, that is low key and accepting. One can almost imagine that if the town were wound as tightly as Richardson, it may not have accepted him at all. (And in fact, a few years after the action of the film, after Richardson had left the school, a friend of his, another African American, was found mur dered and left in an irrigation ditch in town. The unsolved murder sug gests the powder keg from which this film draws its power and meaning.) nrr ") St 1 m. 1 T The story is told through interviews with girls from the team, members of the community, Richardson, Bill Dowdy, an older, less intense, white guy who is assistant coach, and maybe most important, the look of a team that gives everything it's got on the court. In the director's view, "the play (on the court) was the externalization of their spiritual, psy chological and emotional processes." Dowdy tries to smooth over Richardson's hard edge. This leaves Richardson thinking that he is being undermined, and creates uneasy loy alties among the team and members of the community. The two hour film devotes an in credible amount of time to actual bas ketball play, the subject that brings together coach, team, filmmaker, community, and audience. Derby lik ens the time on the court to the car chase in another kind of film. With the voice of veteran announcer Dave Schaeffer describing the action, the issues are all brushed aside for the sheer excitement of the game. Derby used tapes from radio broad casts in which the noise in the sta dium was so intense that Schaeffer was literally screaming his broadcast into a telephone. "What makes Rocks a more dy namic film (than Hoop Dreams) is that no one is a vil lain," said Derby. "Everyone had an ingredient for their recipe for success. The film is more about how do we come together de spite our differ ences, our conflicts." At a screening in Window Rock, Ari zona, capital of the Navajo Nation, Dowdy told the direc tor that "the same story happens in every program, and it's just a ques tion of whether you get over (the con flicts) or not." The production was held up by law suits, bankruptcies, floods, and Na tive "witching." On the other hand, it was spurred forward by a Ford Foundation grant and the help of many, including CTGR Tribal Elder and former Tribal Council Chair woman Kathryn Harrison who served on the director's advisory board and suggested that the power of the film could be found in the support of the community for the team. "With many different cultures rep resented," said Harrison, "we were asked what was important to our people. I thought giving encouragement and passing on our ideals to young people, and the spiritual part," she said. She described the spiritual part as "tra dition, and praying for one another. Putting trust in the Lord. That's what helped us to survive and endure through the generations," she said. "You have your instincts," said Derby, "and you do the emotional math, but you need to have things validated and illuminated for you." In that respect, "Kathryn shared some serious and deeply personal stories. And that let me know what I was do ing and how to do it." The documentary aired last month on the Public Broadcasting System after wide exposure at film festivals, including the Hawaii International Film Festival (2001), American In dian Film Festival (2001), Slamdance Festival (2002), DC Independent Film Festival (2002), Wisconsin Film Fes tival (2002), Taos Talking Pictures (2002), USA Film Festival in Dallas, Tx (2002), First People's Festival of Montreal (Second Prize, 2002), Silver Lake Film Festival in LA (2002), Williamstown Film Festival (2002), NY Urbanworld Film Festival (Best Documentary, 2002), Native Cinema Showcase sponsored by the Smithsonian Museum for the Ameri can Indian (2002), Native American Film and Television Alliance Film Festival in LA (Best Feature, Vision ary Award given to the Director, 2002). And in truth, the project is not fin ished. "The story kept happening in front of me and I kept shooting," said Derby, who has four more episodes waiting "for a little bit of money, and PBS to say, 'Come on.'" The title, by the way, comes from a rock formation in town called, "Rock with Wings."
