—Book reading, discussion, and book signing. William Iggiagruk Hensley (Inupiaq) was born in Kotzebue, Alaska, about thirty miles above the Arctic Circle. Hensley served four years in the Alaska House of Representatives and six years in the Alaskan State Senate. He also was president of the Alaska Federation of Natives and worked with the NANA Regional Corporation, the United Bank Alaska, the Alaskan Department of Economic Development, and the Alyesha Pipeline Service Company. His autobiography, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow (Farrar , Straus & Giroux, January 2009), recounts his early years growing up in a fishing, hunting, and trapping village to then becoming a leader and tireless advocate for Native Alaskan rights.

Listen! I have a story to tell

Join us for a twenty-minute Reading Program of books by or about Native American people for student groups (Grades K-4) and families. Presenters include Native staff from the museum.

You may reserve space for students by calling: 202-633-6644 or email: NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu

"Hok-noth-da?" means "Did you hear?" in the Shawnee language.

Reservations required.

Artist Bunky Echo-Hawk (Pawnee/Yakama) will create a painting, 'live' as he engages students in a discussion about Native American issues. Afterwards, students will view the new exhibition, Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian. Recommended for grades 9-12.

Call to reserve seating at 202-633-6644.

Join the fun as the Museum celebrates traditional and contemporary storytelling from a variety of Native communities. Listen, watch and learn how to tell stories not only with words, but with string, dance and art.

NMAI Cultural Arts and The Smithsonian Associates present Drew Lacapa! Comedian Andrew "Drew" Lacapa (Apache/Hopi/Tewa) combines Native folk tales, contemporary humor, and Indian flair. He believes his humor is not discriminatory in that everyone is worthy of being teased regardless of ethnicity or religion. His act personifies the hardships of Native people in this century. Lacapa's physical antics, enhanced with costumes, create a unique portrait of contemporary America's indigenous people.

Resident and NMAI Members $15; General admission $20. The Mitsitam Native Foods Café will be open during this program.

Listen! I have a story to tell

Join us for a twenty-minute Reading Program of books by or about Native American people for student groups (Grades K-4) and families. Presenters include Native staff from the museum.

You may reserve space for students by calling: 202-633-6644 or email: NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu

"Hok-noth-da?" means "Did you hear?" in the Shawnee language.

12 noon, Rasmuson Theater
5:30 p.m., Mitsitam Café (Tickets required)

Book reading, discussion, and book signing. Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibway, Curve Lake First Nations) is a novelist, journalist, playwright and filmmaker. A self-described "contemporary storyteller," he has written 20 books, including the Funny, You Don't Look Like One series about issues affecting Canada's First Nations. He has worked on more than 17 documentaries, most notably "Redskins, Tricksters, and Puppy Stew" for the National Film Board of Canada. Taylor served as an editor and contributor to the books, Me Funny and Me Sexy, about Native humor and Native sexuality, respectively.

At noon, Taylor will be discussing his gothic novel for teens, A Night Wanderer (Annick Press, 2007) and other new releases in the Rasmuson Theater. The evening event will be a Valentine's Day themed program for adults. Taylor will discuss Me Sexy in the museum's Mitsitam Native Foods Café with beverages and desserts for purchase. The evening program is free and open to the public but space is limited; advanced tickets are required.

Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibway) explores the past and wonders about the future as he examines contemporary dilemmas faced by Canada's First Nations youth today. Toronto at Dreamer's Rock is a moving portrayal of a teenage boy who is torn between the traditions of his people, which he only vaguely understands, and the lure of modern life. His magical encounter with two members of his tribe — one from 400 years in the past and one from the future — make him aware of how little he has thought about what it means to be Indian.

This play reading is free and open to the public. Seats are first come, first served. This program is recommended for middle school ages and older.

This year's Power of Chocolate festival will come alive in a colorful celebration of culture, music, dance, art, science, and of course food. The program will explore the rich history and ongoing story of chocolate and the world of cacao and will be comprised of an assortment of programming from the spectacular Peruvian scissor dancers, to demonstrations with artisans like the Guatemalan gourd artists, food demonstrations, to one-on-one interactions with Bolivian cacao growers.

Visitors will be able to extend their understanding of chocolate, including its healing, scientific, and medicinal properties, and deepen their understanding of the cultures and communities that have cultivated this valuable crop. Program will also include hands-on activities for families and children.

The ECHO (Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations) Project returns to the NMAI with a performing arts collaboration. Native artists from Alaska, Hawai'i, and Massachusetts share an original performance piece infused with oral tradition, dance, and music of each of their regions. The 2009 ECHO Performing Arts Festival will be built around the topic of food as survival, community builder, cultural marker, and source of comfort. The performance will consider the ways our cultures and foodways have changed over time and the effects those changes have had on our lives.

Presented in partnership with The Peabody Essex Museum, The New Bedford Whaling Museum and Ocean Exporium, The Bishop Museum, The Alaska Native Heritage Center, The Inupiat Heritage Center, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

For reservations for student groups, please call 202-633-6644 or TTY 202-633-6751.

This series of workshops focus on the three permanent exhibitions, join education staff to uncover analytical approaches to connect collections and content from each exhibition with classroom teaching strategies.

To register, visit the Education page at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu. $25 per workshop.

Dennis Zotigh (Kiowa, Santee Dakota and Ohkay Oweengeh Pueblo) will facilitate Plains Warbonnet Construction. 20 individuals can participate in a hands-on feather making workshop. For reservations for this workshop please call group reservations at 202-633-6644, or email NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu

Native American students under the direction of Shirod Younker, Oregon College of Art and Craft, display their hand crafted paddles, painted in traditional and contemporary designs.

Reading Program. A twenty-minute reading program of books by or about Native American people for student groups (grades K-4) and families. Presenters include Native staff from the museum. You may reserve space for students by calling 202-633-6644 or email NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu. "Hok-noth-da?" means "Did you hear?" in the Shawnee language.

This series of workshops focus on the three permanent exhibitions, join education staff to uncover analytical approaches to connect collections and content from each exhibition with classroom teaching strategies.

To register, visit the Education page at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu. $25 per workshop.

Interview and Discussion. Hattie Kauffman (Nez Perce) is the National News correspondent for The Early Show based in Los Angeles. She is the first Native American journalist to report on a national broadcast. An Emmy Award-winning reporter, Kauffman has covered a variety of subjects from breaking news to features on newsmakers to stories on people and places that don't often make headlines. Prior to joining CBS, she was a reporter for "Good Morning America" from 1987 to 1990. Previously, she was a reporter and anchor at KING-TV in Seattle, Washington. Moderated by Liz Hill (Ojibwe), author and Washington, D.C. public relations consultant.

In celebration of Women's History Month.

This series of workshops focus on the three permanent exhibitions, join education staff to uncover analytical approaches to connect collections and content from each exhibition with classroom teaching strategies.

To register, visit the Education page at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu. $25 per workshop.

A twenty-minute reading program of books by or about Native American people for student groups (grades K-4) and families. Presenters include Native staff from the museum. You may reserve space for students by calling 202-633-6644 or email NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu. "Hok-noth-da?" means "Did you hear?" in the Shawnee language.

Julia Keefe (Nez Perce) from Spokane, WA, is an award-winning jazz vocalist who will perform swing era classics of jazz legend and singer, Mildred Bailey. Julia began singing while in the sixth grade and won an outstanding vocal soloist award at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival in 2007.

Book reading and book signing. Writer and critic Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche) has been regarded as "one of the decade's leading voices on issues of American Indian art, identity, mass culture, and politics." He is the co-author with Robert Warrior of Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. Smith joined the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee at the age of nineteen and later became the founding editor of the American Indian Movement's Treaty Council News. His latest book, Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (University of Minnesota Press, April 2009), is a memoir and commentary about the representation of American Indians in the media and pop culture. Currently Smith is an associate curator at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Celebrate the museum's landscape, inside and out. Learn how NMAI's cropland, meadow, wetland, and woodland habitats honor the Native communities of the Chesapeake. Discover some ways in which Native people used the resources in this environment and showed respect for them as well.

Activities include cooking demonstrations, hands-on activities, planting traditions, storytelling, and films. Venues will be located throughout the museum.

The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito by Canadian playwright, novelist and children's author, Tomson Highway (Cree) is a one-woman show featuring Canadian singer and actor, Patricia Cano, who tells the life story of a young mosquito from northern Manitoba named Mary Jane, who also happens to be the only mosquito in the history of the world born without wings! Can she survive? Come to find out and see her sing her heart out! Audiences are given Mary-Jane's Sing-Along Song Book, which includes adaptation of children's songs often with Cree lyrics incorporated.

Rose is a play by Canadian playwright and novelist, Tomson Highway (Cree) from Brochet, Manitoba, and the third installment in the "rez" cycle--a large-cast musical set on the Wasaychigan Hill Reserve in 1992. Violence against women is once again a powerful issue in the play as the battle for the future of the community builds to its shattering climax.

The Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe will be open for dinner before the show. Tickets for the play required: Call (202) 633-3030 or visit www.ResidentAssociates.org.

A twenty-minute reading program of books by or about Native American people for student groups (grades K-4) and families. Presenters include Native staff from the museum. You may reserve space for students by calling 202-633-6644 or email NMAI-GroupReservations@si.edu. "Hok-noth-da?" means "Did you hear?" in the Shawnee language.

Set in Hawaii during the early 19th Century, this poignant piece explores the complex relationships amongst Christian missionaries and indigenous women forty years after the islands' first contact with the West. Honolulu-based writer Victoria Kneubuhl is a recipient of the prestigious Hawai`i Award for Literature.

There will be a brief audience discussion with the playwright after the Saturday matinee. Seats are limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

Book reading, discussion, and book signing. Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl (Native Hawaiian) lives and works in Honolulu. She has a master's degree in Drama and Theater from the University of Hawai'i and has produced twelve plays, several of which have toured to Britain, America, the Pacific, and Asia. Her recent publications include Hawai'i Nei, an anthology of three plays, and Murder Casts a Shadow, a murder mystery set in 1930s Honolulu. She is a recipient of the Hawai`i Award for Literature.