Indigi-fest to celebrate Indigenous culture through food, dancing and other workshops

Grand Valley’s Office of Multicultural Affairs will host Indigi-fest on Nov. 20 with sessions starting at 10:30 a.m. The event is intended to celebrate and educate the community on Indigenous culture and traditions as well as to introduce attendees to components of a Powwow celebration, which Grand Valley holds annually in April. 

“This is for the Grand Valley community to learn and engage with Indigenous culture, histories and beliefs and have the time for them to reflect,” said fourth-year student Simon Baker. “We want to show the campus that this culture is still thriving, that it is very much still alive.”

Indigi-fest will kick off with a tribal governance workshop and continue with a series of workshops and sessions throughout the day. Attendees are encouraged to drop in as they are able and are not required to stay for the entirety of the event. 

Baker, who serves as the financial advisor of GVSU’s Native American Student Association, hopes that students will find a topic that they are interested in or that relates to their area of study to attend. For him, it’s the food sovereignty session, which will explore manoomin, or wild rice, which is a vital part of Anishinaabe food sovereignty and environmental protection efforts, specifically within the Great Lakes region. 

“Environmental and sustainability studies is my major. Specifically, I'm really interested in sustainable agriculture. Wild rice, or manoomin, is a really important staple food, especially in the Great Lakes and in my community and tribe,” Baker said.

The event is several months before Grand Valley’s annual Powwow, set for April, and is intended to introduce those who may not be as familiar with a Powwow to different aspects of the event. A Powwow is a celebration of Native American culture and a gathering of community that includes song, dance, feasting and socializing. Indigi-fest attendees will have the opportunity to learn dances and songs performed at Powwows. See more from the most recent Powwow here . 

“We’re going to have dancers come in and introduce people to some of the dances and customs at Powwows,” explained Anheles Coronado, president of the Native American Student Association. “It's kind of an intro course to get people prepared so that if they wanna come to the Powwow, they're not thrown into a world that they don't understand.”

Indigi-fest is just one of many events hosted by GVSU's Office of Multicultural Affairs throughout the year to provide educational cultural opportunities to the community. Recently Baker, Coronado and other members of the Native American Student Organization hosted an Indigenous Peoples Day event that allowed campus community members to partake in the Red Sand Project at the Cook Carillon Tower. Red sand poured in the cracks of the sidewalk represented missing and murdered Indigenous women who fall through the cracks of social, economic and political systems.

Coronado said that Indigi-fest, in addition to preparing the community for Powwow, also intends to raise awareness of the Indigenous community and traditions. “People tend to think of Native American cultures as something historical, rather than a modern, living culture,” he explained. “There will be a language workshop that explores the Anishinaabe language to help show people that this culture is not an artifact, it's something that people do right now. Indigenous people are our neighbors, and Michigan is a state that has a lot of Native American presence.”

Indigi-fest falls during Native American Heritage Month, which is celebrated annually in November. While month-long celebrations are a great place to start, Baker said, the work must continue year-round. “We’re trying to bring awareness that we are a people that are still alive today. We are here, we've always been here. The culture, the lifestyle, these are all things that are still practiced and are still very meaningful to us.”

Indigi-fest sessions will be held in the Grand River Room in Kirkhof Center and the Multipurpose Room of Mary Idema Pew Library. Full event details can be found on the Office of Multicultural Affairs Native American Heritage Celebration webpage.