Tag: culture

Features, Opinion

On Cultural Appropriation

BY KAYLYN HASLUND
For the UAS Whalesong

With Thanksgiving a week past, it might be good to have a little bit of reality check, though it may be unwelcome, in terms of cultural appropriation during the holidays. It’s a tough truth to face, but it’s important to understand what exactly that all means. It’s especially important when we think about where we live and go to school, in a place that is filled with people who are so culturally rich. It is a sociological concept that views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture as negative. Now, it can be confusing, because what necessarily is appropriation and what isn’t?

Continue reading “On Cultural Appropriation”

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Features, Opinion

Gotta Get Down on Friday

BY ALEXA CHERRY
For the UAS Whalesong

On November 6th, I attended First Friday in downtown Juneau for the first time in my almost 4 years of living and going to school here. Since it was my first time, I honestly had no idea what to expect; I knew that it was supposed to be some kind of gallery walk, but that’s hard to form a mental image of when you’ve never actually been on a gallery walk before. In my mind, I was picturing something that was probably more similar to a set from Owen Wilson’s film “Midnight in Paris;” I imagined a sort of promenade down an entirely fictional boulevard downtown, lined with galleries that would have brought some of their best pieces out to display on the sidewalk while people walked along under twinkling lights strung up overhead and sipped wine set out for sampling and murmured appreciatively while being exposed to culture. Continue reading “Gotta Get Down on Friday”

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Features, Video Game Review

“Never Alone:” Cultural Importance

BY KAYLYN HASLUND
For the UAS Whalesong
Continued from Alexa Cherry’s article.

As Lexi has pointed out in her part of this article, the video game, Never Alone: Kisima Ingitchuna, has brought attention to the Iñupiaq community. The game, made by Upper One Games and published by E-Line Media, was made in conjunction with the Cook Inlet Tribal Council. They worked together with elders to make sure that the game actually fit the culture and stories that they were working to give representation to.  Ernestine Hayes, our one campus one book author, headed the panel at “The Making of ‘Never Alone’: Native Voices and New Media Display.”. They skyped with E-Line Media. Continue reading ““Never Alone:” Cultural Importance”

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Campus Life, Features, Video Game Review

“Never Alone:” Until You Are

BY ALEXA CHERRY
For the UAS Whalesong

If you own one of the big-name video game consoles – an Xbox or a PlayStation – or even if you just play games on your computer, you’ve probably heard of the game Never Alone (Kisima Innitchuna). You will also have heard of it if you attended one of the recent events at UAS, “The Making of ‘Never Alone’: Native Voices and New Media Display.” Released in 2014, Never Alone uses the technology of gaming systems to share Native Alaskan culture and storytelling with the world. The main website for the game (http://neveralonegame.com/) explains this better than I can: “We paired world class game makers with Alaska Native storytellers and elders to create a game which delves deeply into the traditional lore of the Iñupiat people to present an experience like no other. Never Alone is our first title in an exciting new genre of ‘World Games’ that draw fully upon the richness of unique cultures to create complex and fascinating game worlds for a global audience.”

I attended the aforementioned event about Never Alone and its creation, but in preparation for doing so, I thought I would go ahead and try to actually finish playing the game. I got it for free through PlayStation Plus about a year ago, and after it downloaded I let it sit on my console for a while   without actually ever playing it. Then, one night, I was tooling around on my PS4 while my friend sat on the couch trying to do homework, and found it in my menu of downloaded games. Recalling that I’d heard it was good and also short, I decided that my friend’s homework was less important than us having a Cultural Experience and kicked the game into gear. Continue reading ““Never Alone:” Until You Are”

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Features, Play Review

Othello: The Experience

BY ALEXA CHERRY
For the UAS Whalesong
For the past month, Perseverance Theater has been putting on a stage performance of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Othello. I attended the performance in an attempt to branch out from my usual cinematic theater experience, and also because I won a free ticket at Campus Kickoff earlier this year. So, one rainy night that didn’t really differ from the usual kind of Juneau night in any way, I headed downtown with my friends to see if I could become a more culturally edified person.
My recollection of Othello was fairly limited going in. I remembered reading the play in high school – a “Shakespeare Made Easy” version with the original convoluted English on one page and the modern translation on the other. I also remembered that the general gist of the plot (sorry about spoilers, but it’s been out for a couple hundred years now) was that a guy named Iago works his hardest to break up the Moorish general Othello and Othello’s new wife, Desdemona. This culminates in Othello flying into a jealous rage and murdering Desdemona, then having Immediate Regret and killing himself. Other than that, though, I only really recalled dialogue, so I was interested to see what the Perseverance Theater had in store for me.
The first thing I noticed upon entering the theater was that the stage was fairly empty for a play. It was just a sort of dark blue square, with doors in the walls. This immediately tipped me off: this play was going to involve a lot of Monologues. It seems to me like there are two kinds of plays – ones where the characters move around and do stuff in different settings, like Pirates of Penzance, and then there are ones where the characters mostly just stand around talking to each other and to the audience. Othello ominously promised to be one of the latter. Continue reading “Othello: The Experience”

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Features

Language Matters

BY KAYLYN HASLUND
For the UAS Whalesong
It’s no surprise to anyone on our UAS campus that our community is making efforts to preserve and showcase the living language of native peoples, not just in Juneau, but in all of the world. Language Matters and that is the name of the first in a film series currently running over the next week, and it helps show both the downfall of some languages and the resurgences of others.
In light of the recent Board of Regents meetings, where students voiced their concerns for Alaskan Native culture/ language and how to keep it alive, this film shows that it is completely possible to save these languages and rejuvenate the culture. In part of that, there are new steps, that I saw in the first film, which could be used to help Alaskan Natives. Continue reading “Language Matters”

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Features

Strange Things to Do: Bumbershoot

BY JASMINE MATTSON-WOLFF, Kóot Xeech
For the UAS Whalesong
Friends, my readers, you lovely people: Why are you here in Juneau studying at UAS? I’m here for the simple fact that it was going to be a stepping stone university, and then I started learning Tlingit. Shortly after I began learning Tlingit, I enrolled in the Alaska Native Studies program. So, now I’m here for a while because it’s the most logical place to be in my field of study. Despite my story, I am aware some of you made a big decision to travel far and wide just to attend this university. Why? Well for one, this place is sort of amazing, but at the same time Alaska is also this happy balance of amazing stuff, strange stuff, and crazy weather all rolled into one snowball in the face for anybody who decides to reside here. I am here with this article to talk about an amazing yet strange (and crazy weather as well, I suppose) experience I had recently. Continue reading “Strange Things to Do: Bumbershoot”

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