Indian issues in video: producer Barry ZeVan and filmmaker Teresa Konechne this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. on KFAI
From: Clara NiiSka (niis0001umn.edu)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:58:34 -0800 (PST)
Live: Sunday night on 9:00 - 10:30 on Womanist Power Authority, KFAI Radio, 90.3 FM in Minneapolis, 106.7 FM in St. Paul, and online at http://www.kfai.org.

Producer *Barry ZeVan* and *Teresa Konechne* talk about their work, advocacy for social justice, Indian land, sacredness, and wild rice ... and whatever else - it's live radio.

*Barry ZeVan*: Emmy-nominated producer of the documentary /American Indian Homelands: Matters of truth, honor and dignity -- immemorial/, "a powerful film on the century's worth of the legal and political moves undermining Indian land ownership and sovereignty, going back to the 1887 General Allotment Act," in collaboration with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation;

and award-winning independent filmmaker *Teresa Konechne*, who recently produced a short video in collaboration with the White Earth Land Recovery Protect, /Manoomin: a Minnesota way of Life/, about the sacredness of wild rice and why legislation is needed to ban genetically engineered wild rice, and is currently working on a longer documentary, with a working title of: /Manoomin: seeds of sacredness/, that Konechne says, "..will be more culturally-based, more community-based ... a social change tool, to activate people to participate in civil society. I'm trying to speak to both a local audience and a broad audience, that this is unjust, that indigenous peoples' lives are being destroyed everywhere in the world, and have been for millennia. I'm also trying to get at the heart of why so many of us can not 'take in' what sacredness is. Why, when an elder talks about the sacredness of all that is, that that does not resonate within our bodies. We in the dominant culture have experienced our own disconnect that I believe we are just starting to recognize, name, and come to terms with. And within that to understand how that affects how and who we are in the world today." She sees social change as the "inevitable outcome if we connect ourselves to each other and to our mother earth."

*Sarah Alexander*, the Wild Rice campaign manager for the White Earth Land Recovery Project will also make a brief appearance to talk about the legislation going in front of the MN Senate and House Ag committees this coming Monday and Tuesday.

*Teresa Konechne*, originally from South Dakota, is an artist, activist and educator and works in the areas of experimental performance, installation and video art. Her first documentary, /This Black Soil: A Story of Resistance and Rebirth/, has received honors at various festivals around the country. Currently a Bush Fellow, she says of her work, "I am committed to bringing art and social change together, to use my work to explore issues of race, class and gender, and push boundaries to open up the documentary vernacular to include a feminine aesthetic that includes not only stories that are rarely told, but the way in which we tell these stories." Her "really under construction" website is: www.workinghandsproductions.com -- which hopefully will be finished in the near future.

*Barry ZeVan* celebrated 60 years as a professional broadcaster in 2003, commencing his career at age five-and-a-half as a singer and actor on radio in his native Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Barry subsequently acted on Broadway, national television, and in feature motion pictures, in both his youth and adult years. His non-acting broadcast career has included having garnered the highest-rated television weathercasts in broadcasting history (KSTP-TV, Minneapolis-St. Paul, 1971 through 1974, with a 51 percent share of the audience). He has also been, and still often maintains activity as, a radio and television talk-show host, voice-over commercial announcer (in both the U.S. and Europe), commentator, newscaster, executive, broadcasting consultant and motivational speaker.

Although most known for his award-winning on-air broadcast work, his producing, directing, writing and videographic abilities have garnered him three Emmy nominations for documentary series’ and individual documentaries since 1975. His productions have aired on HBO, PBS and Bravo, and, as Barry notes, "have featured kings, queens, presidents, ambassadors, top presidential cabinet officials and world-respected arts and entertainment celebrities, most of whom were, and continue to be, his social as well as professional friends, as interviewees and participants." Barry’s most recent documentary work, completed in early 2005, is /AMERICAN INDIAN HOMELANDS: Matters of truth, honor and dignity – immemorial/, featuring host Sam Donaldson, and Senators John McCain and former Senator Tom Daschle, concerning American Indian issues never-before-publicly- discussed or revealed.

Barry has written and voiced regionally-aired five-minute radio commentaries about general subjects of current interest. He is listed in The International Authors and Writers’ Who’s Who, published in Cambridge, England. Also a licensed Minnesota real estate agent, and living in the same Minneapolis suburb for 22 years, Barry is married with two daughters, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

When this WPA producer and host asked Barry ZeVan for biographical material, he sent his biographical resume, chronicling a remarkable career beginning as a singer on KDKA Pittsburgh, the first commercial radio station in the U.S., just twenty years after the inception of commercial radio and spanning more than sixty years on radio, television, and 'the legitimate theater.' With Barry's permission to include it in this program announcement - and to avoid problems with attachments on some list-servs - we have temporarily posted it online at http://www.maquah.net/BarryVanZan.htm



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