Arts Fair at UA’s Moundville Park Attracts Prominent Native American Artists and Acts

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Native American performing artists, craftspeople, and musicians will entertain and educate visitors during Native American Heritage Days, May 11 and 12 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The University of Alabama’s Moundville Archaeological Park.

Native American Heritage Days showcases superior Indian arts and crafts and offers both children and adults a cultural and educational opportunity to interact with Indian artists who demonstrate and discuss their artwork with visitors. Heritage Days is the only arts fair at Moundville that features both contemporary and traditional works, open to artists and craftspeople of all tribal backgrounds and affiliations.

Attractions will include an Indian Market of custom handmade goods—from paintings to baskets, carved shell jewelry to hand cast silver—performances of Plains style and traditional southeastern Indian dance and drums, flutists, songs, and stories. Concerts will feature indigenous music, country blues, and psychedelic blues metal.

The West Tennessee Choctaws will perform age-old social dances and sing hymns and songs in their native tongues. They will be accompanied by the Tallasehatchee Creek Singers, a “southern style drum” with plains style dance demonstrations.

Heritage Days also features two accomplished flutists who make the instruments they play, instruments they craft to look and sound unique. Billy Whitefox, a Muskogee flute and saxophone player from Florida, has released two CDs and is recording a third. Tdom Bah Toden Kxee, a Kiowa flutist, is a potential nominee for the 2001 Native American Music Award in Independent Recording. He invented a Native American wooden saxophone that has delighted audiences across the Southeast.

Ulali, a nationally touring female acapella trio, will be in concert performing indigenous music including southeast choral singing (pre-blues and gospel) and pre-Columbian music. They drum, rattle, stomp, and sing in many languages and styles, and are noted for their unusual harmonies and wide vocal and musical ranges.

Butch Mudbone, a country blues guitarist from Tennessee will open for Ulali on Saturday, May 12. Mudbone has played with Professor Longhair, BB King, the Neville Brothers, James Brown, and other famous musicians. The band Dragonfly will also appear in concert at Heritage Days, performing their original psychedelic blues metal music with a Native American flare.

Admission for Native American Heritage Days is $3 for children and $5 for adults. For more information, group discounts, or reservations telephone 205/371-2234 or 205/371-2572. Moundville Archaeological Park is operated by The University of Alabama Museums.