Free Festival at the Briscoe Nov. 14

Celebrate the art, traditions and living cultures of Native peoples at the Briscoe Western Art Museum’s annual Yanaguana Indian Arts Festival on Saturday, November 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The free, family-friendly festival fills the museum and its River Walk campus with Native artists, dance, drumming, storytelling, hands-on art and opportunities to connect with the cultures that helped shape the American West. Admission to the festival, all festival activities and the entire museum are free. Free event registration is available online.

Celebrating Native American Heritage Month and the influence of Native peoples on the American West, the celebration extends throughout the museum, where families can explore the Briscoe’s landmark exhibition, Tejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story, as well as Selena Forever /Siempre Selena and Kathy Sosa Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico, at no cost. Visitors can also experience the Briscoe’s new Valerie Urschel Guenther Four Pillars Gallery, featuring Beyond the Frontier: Four Pillars of Western Art, an immersive introduction to the people, cultures and landscapes that shape the West.

A Celebration of Living Traditions

The festival opens with a blessing and drum circle, followed by morning performances from United San Antonio Pow Wow with Enemy Horse Drumming.

Visitors are invited to participate with the powwow dancers and learn about the traditions expressed through their movements. In the afternoon, Hithla Dance Troupe shares the songs and stomp dancing of Southeastern Native American cultures. With members representing Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and Creek communities, the troupe preserves and shares cultural traditions through performance and education.

Throughout the day, visitors can meet Native American artists, watch demonstrations and learn how materials, techniques and stories become works of art. Featured artists include:

• Shane Hendren, a Diné/Navajo jewelry maker and turquoise expert, sharing the artistry and materials behind Native American jewelry.
• Tim Blueflint Ramel, an enrolled member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, sharing his work as a flute and jewelry maker and performing Native American flute music.
• George Curtis Levi, a Southern Cheyenne artist with ties to the Arapaho and Oglala Lakota communities, demonstrates ledger art, a tradition that uses the pages of record books to share scenes and stories of Native life.
• Chase Kahwinhut Earles, a Caddo pottery artist dedicated to reviving and preserving the pottery techniques of his ancestors, sharing the craftsmanship and cultural knowledge carried through Caddo ceramics.
• Kevin Horace Quannie, a Hopi/Navajo artist who specializes in contemporary katsina carving using cottonwood roots.

Families can make their own art at free craft stations throughout the day and enjoy a screen-printing station where you can make a commemorative print of your own. Indigenous storytellers Joyous Windrider and Rosie Torres bring intergenerational stories to life through movement and a storytelling program that concludes on the bank of the San Antonio River as it runs along the museum campus. Tejano re-enactor Charles Lara portrays a Texas Delaware blanket trader of the 1820s–1850s, adding another perspective on the people and exchanges that shaped the region. Dona Kika’s food truck will be onsite with food available for purchase.

Explore the Connections Across the West

Yanaguana celebrates Native People of the Americas, one of the Briscoe’s Four Pillars of Western Art. Inside the new Four Pillars Gallery, Beyond the Frontier places that celebration within a broader story, introducing all four pillars: Wildlife & The Land; Native People of the Americas; Tejanos, Vaqueros & Spanish Heritage; and Cowboys & The American Frontier.

The 14-minute experience brings 85 works of art together with cinematic imagery, animation, music and narration on a nearly 20-foot digital canvas. Featuring Spanish subtitles and running continuously throughout the museum day, Beyond the Frontier invites visitors to see how the histories and cultures represented in Western art intersect, then carry those connections into the galleries.

Those connections are especially meaningful in Tejano Legacy: Another American Origin Story, the Briscoe’s largest and most ambitious exhibition. Exploring nearly 400 years of Tejano history, culture and identity, the bilingual exhibition includes a section examining the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the land and their interactions with Tejano communities. Art and historic objects help visitors understand those relationships as part of the larger story of Texas and the American West.

Two companion exhibitions bring that exploration into portraiture and contemporary art. Selena Forever / Siempre Selena features John Dyer’s large-scale photographs of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, celebrating an enduring figure of Tejano music and culture. Kathy Sosa Revolutionary Women of Texas and Mexico features more than 30 paintings, mixed-media works and sculptures that illuminate women’s roles in shaping the region and carrying its culture forward. All three exhibitions are included in the festival’s free museum admission.