Celebrate Native America at Fenimore Art Museum on August 19

Free, family-friendly event on Saturday, August 19, from 2-5pm

Includes a Haudenosaunee history presentation and a performance of traditional social dance.

Celebrate Native America
Haudenosaunee History and Traditional Social Dance
Saturday, August 19 • 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Lucy B. Hamilton Amphitheater – behind Fenimore Art Museum
Free admission to event (regular museum admission applies if visiting Fenimore Art Museum)

Cooperstown, New York — Experience a special presentation of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) history and performances of traditional social dance on Saturday, August 19from 2:00-5:00 p.m. in the Lucy B. Hamilton Amphitheater behind Fenimore Art Museum. Start with a tour of Otsego: A Meeting Place at 2:00 p.m.

Darren Bonaparte

The presentation begins at 3:00 p.m. as noted Mohawk scholar Darren Bonaparte shares recreated wampum belts and provides insight into the important agreements memorialized by them.  At 4:00 p.m., Chris Thomas and Friends (Onondaga) leads an energetic, participatory series of traditional social dances. Crafters will also be present to sell their works from 2:00-5:00 p.m. This family-friendly event is free and will take place behind the museum overlooking Otsego Lake. Regular museum admission applies if entering Fenimore Art Museum.

SCHEDULE:

• 2:00 p.m.: Tour of Otsego: A Meeting Place
• 3:00 p.m.: Presentation of Haudenosaunee history using recreated wampum by Darren Bonaparte (Mohawk)
• 4:00 p.m.: Traditional Haudenosaunee social dance by Chris Thomas and Friends (Onondaga)
• Crafters will be onsite from 2:00-5:00 p.m.

About Fenimore Art Museum

Fenimore Art Museum, located on the shores of Otsego Lake—James Fenimore Cooper’s “Glimmerglass”—in historic Cooperstown, New York, features a wide-ranging collection of American art including folk art; important American 18th- and 19th-century landscape, genre, and portrait paintings; more than 125,000 historic photographs representing the technical developments made in photography and providing extensive visual documentation of the region’s unique history; and the renowned Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art comprised of nearly 900 art objects representative of a broad geographic range of North American Indian cultures, from the Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Great Lakes, and Prairie regions. Visit FenimoreArt.org.