Before Chicago Avenue:
A Celebration of Native Artists
May 17, 2025
Noon – 4:00 pm
This free family-friendly celebration will feature:
• Z Puppets’ ᏗᎧᏃᎩᏓ ᏓᎦᏏ ᎠᎴ ᏥᏍᏚ TALES OF DAGSI TURTLE & JISDU WABBIT, a new live performance and video in the ongoing musical adventures to keep alive the Cherokee language
•. Graci Horne (Dakota/Lakota) and Juan Lucero (Pueblo) hosting a participatory screenprinting station where people can bring t-shirts, handkerchiefs or use the paper cards on site to print Graci’s design to take home;
•. Julie Boada (Anishinabe), puppetry artist, performer and director with career spanning 30 years, will stiltwalk and lead a puppet making activity for youth;
•. Jennings Mergenthal, an emerging puppetry artist, leading a drop-in puppet making station
• The opening of the ᏩᏙ WADO GARDEN. In Fall 2024, we installed a rain garden of native plants traditionally important to Dakota and Ojibwe people, consulting with Tanagidan Winyan (Dakota/Ojibwe). The garden in the back yard and boulevard of the building will also feature artwork highlighting the importance of the plants to Dakota culture by collaborator Graci Horne (Dakota/Lakota).
Turtle and Wabbit Give Thanks mural image by Graci Horne, 2023.
