The Native American Arts Center produces and hosts the annual Native American Arts Festival Week, designed to enhance and add depth to the Summer Program workshop experience. The week-long festival provides a provocative learning experience by bringing together distinguished artists, scholars, and cultural specialists to present performances, demonstrations, films, exhibitions, showcases, and the popular Michael Kabotie Lecture Series. All events are free and open to the public!

Schedule of Events:

June 16, 2025

7:00pm - Renegades of Art: Native American Arts Festival Week Invitational Exhibition

The Native American Arts Festival Week presents its annual Invitational Exhibition! This year’s exhibition is "Renegades of Art," curated by Pamela Peters (Diné).

The four artists featured in this exhibition showcase their cultural narratives through a wide variety of mediums including murals, mixed media, and tribal presence to celebrate, inform, and inspire the world about the cultural resilience of tribal nations. These artists wield their paintbrushes and more as instruments of strength and perseverance.

The artist/curator led panel discussion takes place at 7:00pm. A reception with Native Foods Taste Testing to follow at 7:45pm.

Artists include:

Carrie "CC" Curley
River Garza
Natasha "Rezmo" Martinez (Diné/Mexicá)
Tiffany Adams

Free

Location: IAF Campus: Parks Exhibition Center

June 17, 2025

12:00pm - Michael Kabotie Lecture Series: N8ive Beauty with Ruth Ann Thorn (Luiseño)

The Native American Arts Festival Week presents its annual Michael Kabotie Lecture Series. This year’s guest lecturers are Indigenous folks who are making positive change in their communities and beyond in their fields that are outside of visual arts.

Ruth Ann Thorn is the FNX TV Host of "This is Indian Country" and creator and owner of N8ive Beauty, the first skincare brand created by a Native woman and the first to be infused with acorn oil sourced from tribal land.

Free

Location: IAF Campus: Krone Library

June 18, 2025

12:00pm - Michael Kabotie Lecture Series: Ossie from PAMYUA

The Native American Arts Festival Week presents its annual Michael Kabotie Lecture Series. This year’s guest lecturers are Indigenous folks who are making positive change in their communities and beyond in their fields that are outside of visual arts.

Aassanaaq "Ossie" Kairaiuak (Yup’ik) from Yup’ik Soul/Funk Band PAMYUA activates his life work utilizing music and art to save lives, to keep Yup’ik culture alive, and give young people something they can look up to and see themselves in. Ossie’s unique and fun approach connects him to the work and all his relatives worldwide. In this series segment, we will learn, listen, and join Ossie on a journey of joy.

Location: IAF Campus: Krone Library

7:00pm - Staged Reading of "We Were There When Jazz Was Invented" by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Featuring Jazz Trumpeter Delbert Anderson

This headlining event of the 2025 Native American Arts Festival Week is an intimate staged reading of Joy Harjo’s latest play, "We Were There When Jazz Was Invented," with the musical accompaniment of Diné Trumpeter, Delbert Anderson. This is the very first time the two renowned Jazz Musicians will hit the stage together. 

Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022 and is winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2024 Frost Medal, Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and was recently honored with a National Humanities Medal.

Delbert Anderson, a Diné jazz trumpet artist, composer, and educator, stands at the forefront of a vibrant Native American jazz scene. His work, deeply rooted in his Diné heritage, seamlessly integrates Navajo "spinning songs" of love, healing, and courtship with jazz and funk, thus marking him as a community-minded Indigenous individualist.

Location: Bowman IAF Theater

June 19, 2025

12:00pm - Michael Kabotie Lecture Series: Kinsale Drake (Diné)

The Native American Arts Festival Week presents its annual Michael Kabotie Lecture Series. This year’s guest lecturers are Indigenous folks who are making positive change in their communities and beyond in their fields that are outside of visual arts.

Kinsale Drake is a Diné poet/editor/playwright whose work has appeared in Poetry, Best New Poets, Poets.org, Poetry Northwest, The Slowdown, Black Warrior Review, The Adroit Journal, Poetry Online, Yale Literary Magazine, TIME, NPR, MTV, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, THE SKY WAS ONCE A DARK BLANKET (University of Georgia Press, 2024), won the 2023 National Poetry Series. She is the Director of the Ndn Girls Book Club, a nonprofit organization that promotes Indigenous literature on every level.

Free

Location: IAF Campus: Krone Library

June 20, 2025

5:00pm - Welcoming Home the Birds

This annual family friendly free event will commence at 5 pm with an artist marketplace where you can shop and support Native Artists directly. We will also convene a mini book fair welcoming Native authors and publishers. Visit non-profit booths and learn more about community and organizational partners. A few partners include: News from Native California, Native American Land Conservancy, Mother Earth Clan, Malki Museum, California Indian Nations College, Cahuilla Consortium and others! Hands-on activities will be available for all ages to learn and enjoy, and a lineup of Native song and dance performances will take place from 5:00pm to 7:30pm. At 7:45pm we will kick off with Bird Singing, welcoming groups throughout Southern California and beyond to share and dance Bird!

Free

Location: IAF Campus: Husch Field

Date: June 16 - 20, 2025

Location: Idyllwild Arts Campus, 52500 Temecula Road Idyllwild, CA 92549

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