When Stevey Seymour, executive director of the Inchelium Language and Culture Association, began planning what would become Kwu Kcnwixw: An Evening of Story, Song and Community, she knew exactly who to call: author Sherman Alexie and musician Tony Louie.
Seymour’s stepfather was the late musician and actor Jim Boyd, a close friend of Alexie. Boyd contributed four songs to the “Smoke Signals” soundtrack, singing lyrics written by Alexie, and appeared in Alexie’s “The Business of Fancydancing.”
Before the release of those films, the pair organized Gathering of the Four Winds, an event celebrating Indigenous art and culture, in the mid-1990s at what is now the Bing Crosby Theater.
All that to say, Seymour sees Alexie as an uncle.
“I think the great thing about Sherman is that when people come to him, when any of us come to him with the things that we need, he’s always been very open-handed and generous and supportive of all the work that we do, not only us, but other organizations as well,” she said. “We are definitely thankful to be in his network of people who he loves.”
Louie, Boyd’s nephew, was another easy call. Louie began learning Nselxcin, the language of the Sinixt and Arrow Lakes communities, at the Inchelium Language and Culture Association before the coronavirus pandemic.
When the association started an art program earlier this year, Seymour hired Louie, a longtime artist, to lead the program.
“This is the culmination of us saying, ‘We recognize that language is integral to our culture, but also we recognize that our arts are integral to our culture, and that we really want to support artists, and we want to highlight artists and bring that about,’ ” Seymour said.
At Kwu Kcnwixw, Alexie will share poetry and other writing, while Louie will play original music and pay tribute to Boyd. The event will also feature a silent auction, raffles and artists booths.
In that way, the event follows in the footsteps of Gathering of the Four Winds. Seymour said people saw how that event brought the community together, and they’re hoping to do the same with this event.
“We wanted to create that same feeling of the hometown boys coming together and doing the show for people and having fun,” she said.
Proceeds from the event will support the association’s programming and help staff and families attend the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education in Auckland, New Zealand.
The ILCA is an organization that doesn’t travel often, Seymour said, choosing instead to use their funds to bring in more language speakers. But after 14 years of running the Nselxcin language learning program, the association wanted to talk to Indigenous communities from around the world about how they’re ensuring their languages thrive.
Funds would also go to support the association’s weeklong Upper Columbia canoe journey and necessary repairs on two of the group’s canoes, one of which is 300 years old and was recently damaged after being run into by a car, an accident that will cost an estimated $100,000 to repair.
“It’s been really heartbreaking, but we have so much hope, because we have such a great community,” Seymour said. “It’s been amazing working with Bobby Whittaker over in Hillyard, as well as Aaron (Fiorini), who owns the Hill House. They’ve been really awesome and supportive in all of this as well. There’s just so many people who came together.”
Whittaker co-owns the Kehoe Block building which houses Hillyard Bicycle. Before Kwu Kcnwixw, attendees can visit Hillyard Bicycle for the blessing of “Her Spring Mural,” a mural by artist Emma Noyes, led by Barry Moses and Shelly Boyd.
Seymour said Noyes is an integral part of the Indigenous community and has given the community a lot of visibility through her work.
When Seymour started working with Nselxcin, there were about 50 people at the Kalispel’s Celebrating Salish Conference, which brings together speakers of Interior Salish languages from the Inland Northwest.
Now, there are more than 700 attendees. Seymour hopes to continue aiding that growth through the work of the Inchelium Language and Culture Association.
“It’s growing, and that was our intent all along is that people could not only make a living doing this, but could change their lives,” she said. “We’ve watched it over and over again, what a great impact language has on the lives of the people who step up to that plate.”
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