Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

JOIN INDIGENOUS FASHION DESIGNER, SAGE MOUNTAINFLOWER ON HER RED JOURNEY IN FASHION, AS SHE WEAVES HER CULTURAL HERITAGE AND THE BEAUTY OF NATURE INTO HER VIBRANT DESIGNS.

THE INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS "MAKING HISTORY" SERIES CONTINUES... ONE OF THE FIRST NATIVE FASHION DESIGNERS, PATRICIA MICHAELS WANTS AUDIENCES TO RETHINK NATIVE FASHION WITH ONE-OF-A-KIND HAUTE COUTURE THAT TRANSCENDS CULTURES AND DEFIES TRENDS.

FOUNDER C. BRIAN WILLIAMS, SHARES THE STORY OF STEP AFRIKA, THE TRAILBLAZING COMPANY THAT TRANSFORMED PERCUSSIVE DANCE, KNOWN AS STEPPING, INTO A GLOBAL SENSATION.

JAMES GAYLES CAPTURES THE SPIRIT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN ICONS LIKE NINA SIMONE, MILES DAVIS, AND MAYA ANGELOU, IN HIS WATERCOLOR PAINTINGS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

WEAVING CULTURE >>Faith: How did you begin your journey in fashion?

>>Sage: I made clothes for my children to be in powwows, to start in our pueblo ceremonies and other ceremonies that they wanted to participate in.

And then every now and then my daughter would be like, I want this, but add this.

And then I'd be like, okay, so trying to figure out how to do it.

And then it just kind of evolved after that.

And then adding like...I like traditional looks, but I also like to be contemporary so I could wear it outside of what I say, traditional boundaries or you know, like your regular everyday wear.

>>Faith: And what inspires the color and the designs of your clothing?

>>Sage: Colors, I like to use the same color, but different hues, different shades, black on black, white on white, pink on pink.

So I usually just keep the same color scheme.

In northern New Mexico, we have red on red pottery, black on black, and I always just like the different shades.

So that's where mostly comes from.

And I'm really inspired by the natural elements of where I come from.

And I'm also, I'm a Lobo, aye, I'm a UNM graduate, so environmental sciences.

So part of that inspired my story or my creation I guess.

In 2017, we had a severe drought here in New Mexico, but in our pueblo, the communities we're farmers and so we're always praying for rain, we're always praying for water, clean water, good water.

So that's where the pink outfit here is called, "She brings the Rain", and in this you see all the ribbon work?

That's 365 ribbons to make that design on the bottom cause every day we were praying for rain at that time.

So it shows water depth, water movement.

From the dark to the light is when you get deeper in the water, the water gets darker, the top is pink.

I use a lot of bright pink because at the time when it rains, everything just pops.

The colors pop, the green pops.

And then I had what we call the tsiguwanu, the lightning bolts on there.

That was because we were praying for rain.

When it comes, it's going to light up the ground, it's going to light up the earth and make it vibrant and vivid.

>>Faith: What inspired then your Fendi Tewa collection?

>>Sage: I think my Fendi Tewa was truly inspired by my invitation to go to Milan Fashion Week.

There's so much talk about cultural appropriation in fashion.

So one of the things was like, well, why not flip it?

They have Fendi Roma, and I have Fendi Tewa, so Fendi in our language, in the Tewa language just means black.

So I just kind of did the black on black and called it Fendi Tewa.

>>Faith: And with your Fendi Tewa collection, there's also a lot of gold I noticed... >>Sage: Yeah, cause that represents who I am from the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh, and we have different clan systems or different societies, but I'm from the summer clans, so it's always black and we always use a lot of black and yellows on our side.

A lot of summer colors, and that's one of them.

So that's where the gold is.

It's just a touch.

Just enough to say I'm summer.

>>Faith: So how did you learn bead working?

>>Sage: I learned bead working from just observation.

I really never sat down and was taught how to bead or anything like that.

But my mom and my aunts, they would always, that was one of the things they did.

They'd have their own beading circle, I guess, and I would always come in, check it out, like, "Hey, whatcha you guys working on now?"

And they would make different styles of bead work and everybody had their own style and I would just kind of watch and observe, but not too closely.

And then I'd walk away, be like alright, see you later.

So none of 'em never thought that they really inspired me how to do it.

And then you start saying things and I was like, well, I'm going to make my own stuff.

>>Faith: And you brought a vest with you.

Can you tell me about that?

>>Sage: Yeah, so this is a vest that I made for my daughter.

She wanted a beaded vest because she dances Jingle.

And so she asked me to make her a vest, and yeah, ended up becoming part of her regalia.

>>Faith: Tell me about the design on it.

>>Sage: The design comes from the Cheyenne Arapaho.

My grandmother, she was Cheyenne Arapaho, and she had a pair of beaded moccasins.

Well, she's from Taos Pueblo, but back then I guess you couldn't have the intermarriages without asking permission.

So when she finally turned 16, her father came for her and took her back to Oklahoma and they had a big giveaway.

And one of the giveaways was a pair of beaded moccasins and this design, but it's not the same design.

It's very similar to it, but I also altered it because that was a design given to my grandmother, not mine, but we still use that same concept, but it's like a morning star design from that area.

So that's how that happened.

>>Faith: Preserving a lot of your family too in the clothing?

>>Sage: Yeah.

And telling the story.

>>Faith: When you were growing up, did you see a lot of clothing that represented your culture?

>>Sage: No, I was always wanting to see that happen because back then I was with a Sharpie.

I'd be all drawing on my shoes, my parents would be mad cause they spent money on it, and then there you are drawing on it.

>>Faith: What were you drawing?

>>Sage: I was just drawing my own little designs, like doodling and things like that.

I wanted to add something that was native on it, and now it's so amazing how the indigenous fashion is just booming and evolving.

It's really awesome to see that now and people that are pushing the drive for indigenous fashion is so amazing.

PATRICIA MICHAELS: It was with Lloyd Kiva New that I learned about fashion and textiles.

And so, he would come to my studio, he would see how I was printing fabric and hand painting fabric, and then I would go up to his house and we would have these wonderful discussions and we would sit, and we would brainstorm about how to possibly bring awareness for Native Americans and fashion and textile design.

To get Native American voice and imagery seen was extremely difficult.

Because at IAIA we celebrated, and we got each other.

It wasn't - we didn't have to explain what it meant to be Native.

We just relished in one another's moments and celebrated that.

I started to go to New York, and I would knock on the doors to try to get - to see what it meant to have a showroom or if I could have something in the showroom and visit other ateliers.

It just - people just looked at me and said, "well you're not doing Native design," because I was using silk.

And then I had my own designs that weren't screaming Native, you know.

It wasn't always just about beadwork and fringe.

One day during ceremonies at Taos Pueblo, I was living in the old village with no electricity or running water.

I was down to forty bucks, and I left the ceremonies.

I said, "I have to go into town to the library and see if I have any orders on the internet."

And there was an email from Project Runway.

And then I got an email that said you've been selected to do an audition, please show up in Dallas.

And they said, "Patricia, we've never seen a Native American designer like this.

You've brought something completely new.

We had no idea.

When we saw that you were Native American, we didn't think that we were gonna see all of this beautiful flowing silk."

And I had a parasol, and it was just a celebrated experience to hear them say this to me - to hear them say that they were happy to see me bring to the table something new and exciting.

For me, this was the most important thing for me to be able to do because I didn't like what the industry was showing us as who we are as Native Americans.

And every single interview that we did on Project Runway, I would mention that I wasn't the only Native American designer out there - that there were other people who were up and coming.

And there were people who were trying to learn the trade.

We can learn how to exist in the linear world, but you can't teach a linear thinker how to be creative.

So, all of us creative people, we already have that.

Don't fear it.

Celebrate it.

Have fun with it.

You can see that fashion is about change, so I don't want to see the same look from last year going down the runway.

Give me something new.

That way we stay in the ballgame.

If we don't do this together, if we don't have Native American fashion designers, together as a team, then we don't have an industry.

STEPPING INTO A NEW WORLD [Drums] JARED BOWEN: C Brian Williams, thank you for being with us.

C. BRIAN WILLIAMS: Thank you.

Just call me Brian.

>>JARED BOWEN Well, tell me how this dance first came to resonate with you.

>>Brian: Well, stepping is a really unique art form.

And, Step Afrika is the first professional company in the world dedicated to this tradition.

I first learned how to step.

On the campus of Howard University in 1989.

[Music] The only way to access the tradition is if you joined a fraternity historically black fraternity or sorority.

>>JARED BOWEN I'm curious about your knowing of it, knowing that it wasn't so public.

So did you know of it?

And you sought it out what was it?

How public was it?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: No, that's a really good question, because I didn't know a lot about stepping before I got to Howard University.

I never actually even seen the art form practiced.

Most Americans still have not been introduced to the tradition of step because for most of its existence it has been in a part of a closed community.

>>JARED BOWEN: How did it come to being and why was it closed?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: So when African-Americans first began to attend colleges in the early 1900s, majority white colleges at the time, they weren't allowed to be fully integrated into student life.

So they created their own fraternities and sororities.

And these place, these frats and sororities were safe places for students during these very volatile times of American history.

They decided to express themselves in a very uniquely African way when they chose to demonstrate their love and pride to a broader community.

They began to sing songs, do movements in a line or a circle.

And this these movements and practices grew into what we now know as the artform of stepping.

our newest production Drum Folk goes even deeper into why we step in the first place.

And we found some fascinating things in that process.

>>JARED BOWEN: How much is it about the body and what the body can do and express?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Stepping for me is about the body becoming the drum.

But the real question for me was why did we have to use the body as a drum?

Why didn't we just play the drum?

At what point in African American history experience did we start to use the body as a drum?

And that's what led us to the Stonewall Rebellion of 1739 and the Negro Act of 1740.

Both of these events are what our latest production drum folk is and are based on.

>>JARED BOWEN: What happens in 1739?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Well, it's a wild time in American history.

It's 1739 in South Carolina.

The institution of slavery is alive and well, sadly.

And Africans are fighting against the tradition and they're rejecting the injustice that slavery was.

So they lead a rebellion.

Word has it that they they use their drums as a way to call others to fight.

They became very concerned that the drum and the African people were going to resist even further.

So they passed the Negro Act of 1740 that took away the right for Africans to use the drum.

And for us, once the drum has disappeared from African people.

The body and other instruments become the drum.

>>JARED BOWEN: So you have been immersed in this for almost 30 years.

And to have this new history, how does that inform you?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Oh, it's exciting for me.

It's so exciting because it's like it reminds you about how many stories we still don't know.

And for me in particular as an African- American, how African- American culture developed here, and what are some of the clues that we can discover along the way?

>>JARED BOWEN: So then you go to Africa and you spend time there and you see the art form, not the same art form, but the art of dance there.

How did you make the connection?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: The year after I graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., I went to Southern Africa to live and study.

And it's there that I was introduced to traditional South African forms and dance styles that were really inspiring and very exciting to me.

One in particular was the South African Gumboot Dance.

So I saw this dance is created by men who worked in the mines of South Africa.

And it's also percussive.

The drum is absent.

The men are using their hands and their feet to make music.

So it's strikingly similar to stepping, but I never heard of the form.

And likewise they had also never heard of stepping.

So the idea was to bring the two artforms together, stepping, meet the South African Gumboot Dance, hence the name Step Afrika.

>>JARED BOWEN: And what does it mean for you to do it today?

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: You know, today it's about preserving and promoting the art form.

You know, Step Africa is here as one of the largest African American dance companies in the world today.

We're here to preserve and promote this uniquely American art form the performance for me basically goes all the way from 1739 to today, and audiences will see the evolution of a form really in this performance.

>>JARED BOWEN: How key is the audience in many, many performance venues?

The audience is passive.

Is that the case here.

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Well, as soon as Step Afrika hits the stage, we are looking to connect and engage the audience.

I mean, we really want the audience to feel free, to make music, to talk, to share, to yell, to scream.

I don't care what they do with the artists >>JARED BOWEN: How are the Obamas as an audience?

You were at the White House.

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We were the featured performer at Obama's Black History Month reception.

Performing at the White House was an honor but I also love going to schools and community centers all across our country, sharing this art form with all Americans.

>>JARED BOWEN: Well, speaking of all Americans, I wonder what it was like to bring men and women together because it started in sororities and fraternities not together.

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: I don't know if you've seen School Daze.

When that- >>JARED BOWEN: Spike Lee >>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Spike Lee C. Brian Williams: When that movie came out, it really introduced fraternity and sorority life to a broad swath of American culture of Americans.

And you started to see the artform of stepping, then being introduced in high schools and middle school and elementary schools and kind of step team sprouted all around the country.

So I actually love that because what it means is that the art form has grown.

>>JARED BOWEN: I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to ask an artist about something that is about an art form that is so new.

And here you are.

You're preserving it.

You're curating it.

You're you're you're taking care of it.

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: That's what this 29, 30 year journey has been about, exploring the art form and determining, you know, we've merged stepping with symphonies, with rock music, with Appalachian Flava and Irish Step, dancing with Israeli folk dance, with traditional African dances from all over, from Tanzania to West Africa to really everywhere in the world.

We just got back from Bolivia collaborating with indigenous culture there.

So we are really the art form to us is a way to connect and create, and that's what's motivated us all these years.

>>JARED BOWEN: Well, Brian, thank you so much.

It's been such a pleasure to be with you.

>>C.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Thank you for your questions and thank you for the interview.

[Stepping] CAPTURING SPIRIT [Music] >>JAMES: Watercolor lends itself to spontaneity, flow, expression I can do my type of style for the shadowing and highlights.

[Music] My name is James Gayles.

I do watercolor portraiture.

I work here in my studio on Dickerson Road in Reno, Nevada.

My subject matter is a lot of times, it's African-American, and I like to show positive images of that segment of the population, to give the people pride in themselves.

I was born on the east coast in Newark, New Jersey, which is right across the bridge from New York City.

As a teenager, I snuck out a lot across the bridge out to New York, to jazz night clubs.

New York City is great, you know, 'cause everything's there, it's the center of everything, fashion, music, art.

So it was great for me, I loved it.

As far back as I could remember, I liked to paint, and draw, and do art.

My mom was one of my biggest encouragers.

I kinda always knew that I was gonna be an artist when I grew up.

I started out in oils when I was a teenager, but I discovered I was allergic to the oil, so that's when I switched to watercolor and acrylic.

I graduated in 1970 from Pratt Institute.

Basically, I'm self taught, long before I went to school.

School just enhanced it more.

I start out with the eyes.

To me, the eyes are the most important thing that can convey the person's spirit.

I break up the face, into shadows and highlights, cheek bones, the nose, the lips.

Watercolor is very good for that.

I go through a lot of paint, a lot of color, because my paintings are saturated with color and paint.

So, I go through tubes very quickly.

Capturing the spirit of a person is the main thing that I'm striving for.

A lot of people find watercolor hard.

I find it easy, because, well as you're painting, there's bound to be mistakes.

But I like to use those mistakes to work on 'em, they create a better end product once you solve those mistakes within the painting.

It's kinda hard to explain how I do it, because I kinda go by feeling.

It's kind of like a spiritual-type thing, you know?

Relate to the subject, and you kind of try and bring out the the their spirit, you know?

I do a lot musicians, Nina Simone, Miles Davis.

Miles Davis is another favorite, 'cause he has very intense eyes.

John Coltrane, and, you know, a lot of icons that they look up to, like Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King.

It's a good feeling, yeah, that I've accomplished something.

Reno's kinda growing on me.

It's a lot different than New York or Oakland, 'cause New York and Oakland are very diverse, you know, very multicultural, you know?

So, I kinda made it my mission to bring African-American art to Reno.

My advice to young struggling artists who struggle with their work, I say don't be discouraged, if things don't work out the first time, you know, stick with it.

They must love it, because there's long hours, and a lot of work they gotta put into it in order to be successful.

So you have to love it, and you have to kind of like be a sponge to absorb any all the artwork, you know, look at art whenever you can in the museums, the galleries, magazines, you know, see what the other artists are doing, and, you know, so you can kinda gauge yourself where you're where you fit in to the whole art scene.

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WATCH NOW ON YOUR FAVORITE NMPBS PLATFORMS [Music] Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts... and Viewers Like You.