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A stamp in honor of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Image courtesy of the National Postal Museum.

Friday, March 23 Dinner & A Movie: Skydancer

For more than 120 years, ironworkers have raised America’s modern cityscapes—sculpting the country’s skylines, fearlessly walking atop steal beams, just a foot wide. Bravery in a job like this, is crucial. In New York City, six generations of Mohawk Indians have made the job their own.

This evening, the American Indian Museum will explore the history of what has been called “sky walking” in a screening of Skydancer, the 2011 film directed by Academy Award nominee Katja Esson. Who are these Mohawk sky walkers? What is their secret for overcoming fear? And what is their life really like, when at the end of each day, they return to their families on the reservation?

This screening is presented as part of the Environmental Film Festival and is followed by a Q&A with Esson. Free. 7 to 8:30 p.m. American Indian Museum.

Saturday, March 24 Cherry Blossom Festival Family Day

In Washington, DC, cherry blossoms are a big deal. In fact, the pink-petaled trees, a gift from Japan in 1912, have become iconic. And this weekend, in celebration of the centennial of the 3,000 trees gifted to the U.S., the fame of these flowers is in full-bloom. This weekend, activities at the National Building Museum, the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and the Smithsonian National Postal Museum open the season. The Postal Museum’s two-day event for “kids of all ages” offers hands-on activities, interactive demonstrations and exciting outdoor performances to celebrate spring and delve into Japanese arts and design. Repeats Sunday at 11:00. Free. 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. National Postal Museum.

Sunday, March 25 Book Signing: Jo B. Paoletti

Pink is to girls as blue is to boys? Right? Not always. Historian, Jo B. Paoletti’s book, Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America has evidence that it used to be the other way around.

Paoletti examines magazines, dolls, advertising, even mommy-blogs that may explain the gendering of pink and blue and the origins of today’s penchant for gender-specific baby and toddler clothing.

This Sunday, Paoletti will be signing copies of her book at the American History Museum. Purchase the book in the museum store. Free. Noon to 3:00 p.m. American History Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

The weather is warm, flowers are blooming, spring is here: don’t we all feel like celebrating the environment right now? This weekend, take a walk down the Mall for the 20th annual DC Environmental Film Festival. With 180 films in two weeks, it’s hard to choose how to budget your time. Luckily for you, we’ve picked out a few that you simply can’t miss.

Space Junk 3-D

In a special advance screening, take a 3-D tour of the junk humans have left behind in our explorations in space. Metal, glass, and plastic objects, sometimes larger than a bus, constantly collide above us and sometimes fall back to the Earth’s atmosphere, with surprising consequences. The film will be introduced by filmmaker Melissa R. Butts. After the screening, she’ll discuss the film with co-filmmaker Kimberly Row. Friday, March 16, 7:00 p.m. Natural History Museum.

People of a Feather

Making its Washington D.C. premiere, People of a Feather has already generated a lot of buzz, after winning the EnvironmentalFilm Audience Award at the 2011 Vancouver International Film Festival. The film travels through time into the world of the Inuit on the isolated Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay, tracing the roots of the environmental and ecosystem devastation that now threatens the Sanikiluaq people. After the film, stick around for a discussion with filmmaker Joel Heath. Saturday, March 17, 2:00 p.m. American Indian Museum.

The Man Who Stopped the Desert

This documentary tells the inspiring story of Yacouba Sawadogo. An illiterate African peasant farmer, Sawadogo struggled for 20 years to reverse creeping desertification by reviving an ancient farming technique. Stick around for a discussion with Paola Agostini, Senior Environmental and Natural Resources Economist, TerrAfrica Program and GEF Regional Coordinator of The World Bank. 6:30 PM, March 22, 2012. African Art Museum.

Semper Fi: Always Faithful

This documentary, following Master Sergeant Jerry Ensminger’s mission to expose a Marine Corps cover-up of one of the largest water contamination incidents in U.S. history, comes to DC after being selected at the Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival. Ensminger’s story, which Film Journal says ”has all the investigative punch of a window-rattling “Frontline” episode and the smoldering intensity of a high-stakes issues drama,” reveals the looming environmental crises at military sites around the country. Saturday, March 24, 6:00 p.m. Anacostia Community Museum.

For complete listings, download the Environmental Film Festival’s schedule, or check in at the following Smithsonian locations: the National Portrait Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Freer and Sackler Galleries, and the American History Museum, which are all screening films this month.

At the American Indian Museum, Thirza Defoe performs traditional songs and hoop dance daily until March 17. Image courtesy of www.thirzadefoe.com.

Tuesday, March 13 Public Murals in Southeast DC

Take a closer look at public murals in this panel discussion about the charged history of public art in the southeast DC neighborhood. The community forum will address the many different views on the merits of public art, issues of the renewal and preservation, and the latest developments on the public art scene. Free, reserve a spot at 202-633-4844. 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Anacostia Community Museum.

Wednesday, March 14 The Last Reef

Explore the hidden, complex worlds under the sea in coral reefs from the Bahamas to Palau. Part of the 2012 Environmental Film Festival, this 3-D global journey celebrates the vibrant life—from dolphins and sharks to anemones and jellyfish—sustained by these delicate and rapidly vanishing ecosystems. Stick around after the screening for a Q&A with directors Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas. $13 for general admission, $10 for members, $7 for children. 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Johnson IMAX Theater, Natural History Museum.

Thursday, March 15 Hoop Dance with Thirza Defoe

Join acclaimed hoop dance artist Thirza Defoe of the Ojibwe and Oneida tribes of Wisconsin for an hour of song, dance and stories. Defoe’s performance, called “tantalizing” and “thrilling” by the New York Times, includes audience participation in a People’s Dance and an introduction to the Ojibwe language. Free. 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. daily through March 17. American Indian Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Why is the horse so important to Native American tribes? Find out this weekend. Image courtesy of the American Indian Museum.

Friday, March 9 John Carter

Andrew Stanton’s sci-fi adventure film John Carter opens with a special midnight showing at the Airbus IMAX Theater on Friday night. Experience every moment of suspense in epic proportions as former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) battles bizarre creatures on the mysterious planet Barsoom. Buy $15 tickets here. 12:01 a.m. Airbus IMAX Theater, Udvar-Hazy Center.

Saturday, March 10 Make Your Own Mud Cloth

Join in a centuries-old tradition of Mali and Bamana culture by designing your own mud cloth. The hand-dyed mud cloth is characterized by rich colors and graphics, and is still used in painting and clothing designs today. Free, RSVP 202-633-4646. 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. African Art Museum.

Sunday, March 11 A Song for the Horse Nation

Learn why the horse was so important to so many Native American tribes through stories, regalia and art. This hands-on activity lets children of all ages explore and engage with different cultural objects that reflect the influence of horses in Native American life. Free. 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. American Indian Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Michael Pahn, photo courtesy of R.A. Whiteside/NMAI

In an on-going series, ATM will bring you the occasional post from a number of Smithsonian Institution guest bloggers: the historians, researchers and scientists who curate the collections and archives at the museums and research facilities. Today, Michael Pahn, an archivist from the National Museum of the American Indian and a musician, reflects on the universal language of music. In September, Pahn wrote about the fiddle and the violin.

I listen to music because I love rhythm and melodies.  But I also love music because it connects me to other people.  Music from another culture or part of the world, gives me a sense of what others think is beautiful or meaningful, or at least catchy.

Every culture, everywhere in the world, makes music.  Any place on Earth that you go, you can find people singing to themselves whether they are harvesting in fields, rocking their children to sleep or driving to work.  We make music when we celebrate or mourn or pray.  We make up songs to express our thoughts at the spur of a moment, and we sing songs that have been handed down from generation to generation.

Music is something that we all, as human beings, have in common. While the ubiquity of music is part of the reason the sound recordings collections at the Smithsonian are so vast, it can also make it difficult to know how or where to dig in. My favorite way to find new things is to free associate. I’ll listen to a recording, then go off in search of other music like it. Or music played on similar instruments.  Or music from the same part of the world. Or just music that the first recording made me think of. That’s all it takes to start hearing new sounds that I’d probably never find if I deliberately set out looking for them.

The John Marshall Collection, housed within the National Museum of Natural History’s Human Studies Film Archives, is one of the Institution’s great treasures.  John Marshall documented the Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari desert in southwestern Africa over a 50-year period beginning in 1950 and the results make up an archive that contains more than one million feet of motion picture footage and hundreds of hours of audio recordings. Marshall captured on film the wrenching story of the Ju/’hoansi  as their traditional semi-nomadic way of life became increasingly unsustainable, and they struggled to adjust to resettlement.  In 2009, his work was recognized by UNESCO, and included on the Memory of the World Register, making it one of only three collections in the United States to carry that honor.

Music is at the heart of the Ju/’hoansi curing ceremony, a central ritual in the tribe’s spiritual life when the community comes together to sing and dance to heal the sick. The tradition continues to this day, but in the 1950s, Marshall was among the first to record footage.  The women sing, clap and occasionally dance.  The men dance, wearing leg rattles made from dried cocoons that create intricate polyrhythms.  The songs themselves, the medicine men, and the fire at the center of the ceremony are believed to contain what the tribe calls n/um, the spiritual energy capable of healing.  This ceremony—and the music performed as part of the ceremony—is the most important expression of Ju/’hoansi spirituality, and is deeply ingrained in their cultural identity. It is clear why these ceremonies have continued despite the drastic changes the Ju/’hoansi have experienced, such as access to western medicine.  It is  also, quite simply, mesmerizing music.

There is a lot to think about in the curing ceremony’s music, but I was most immediately struck by the dried cocoon leg rattles. They sound, and look, beautiful. It also turns out that people all over the world make rattles out of dried cocoons. The Pima Indians of Arizona and the Yaqui Indians of northern Mexico are just two examples. One of my favorites is a really energetic Smithsonian Folkways recording of a Yaqui dance song that features these and other kinds of rattles.

I was interested in hearing other Ju/’hoan music because, as is the case with most people, their music has many contexts, not all of which are ceremonial. In the mid-1950s, when the Ju/’hoansi were still leading a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, their thoughts often turned to the natural world and its inhabitants. In 1955, Marshall filmed three men singing “Red Partridge Song,” which was most likely a composition by the man playing the small stringed instrument in the clip.  This instrument is called a //uashi, and the man playing it is /Gao //uashi, a respected healer and virtuoso who was so closely identified with this instrument that his name roughly translates to “/Gao Music.”

I love this song, but the performance in this clip has an odd, detached quality to it, which according to film archivist Karma Foley of the Human Studies Film Archives, is due to the primitive synchronized sound field recording at that time, which required a generator, among other things. “John Marshall had to set up the scene to be filmed, rather than filming and recording the singing as it would have naturally happened,” Foley explained to me. “Normally, people would sit around together, and someone might pick up an instrument and play for a while. The online clip shows a more arranged scene, separated from the rest of the group—I believe this was due to the bulk of the sync sound recording equipment and the desire to record the music without the background noise of the village.”

The first thing that jumped out at me about this song is how relaxed it is.  The playing is gentle, and the harmonies seem completely off the cuff. I was interested in hearing other music that sounds like “Red Partridge Song,” but I didn’t find anything that was quite as casual or informal. What I did find, however, is beautiful song called Urai Turuk Titirere, sung by the Bat Rerekat people of the Mentawai islands of Sumatra. This song is sung in praise of the titirere bird, but more interestingly, is associated with a complex healing ritual.  I went looking for one commonality, but found a different one!

Contrast the pastoral peace of “Red Partridge Song” with the raw pain of N!ai’s song. This was recorded in 1978, when N!ai’s community of Ju/’hoansi were living in a government settlement called Tsumkwe.  The transition from semi-nomadic to settled life had major health implications for them, and tuberculosis had quickly spread throughout Tsumkwe.  There was a great deal of tension within the community, which had not existed prior to settlement.  In their old life, sharing was commonplace, and large groups rarely lived together for extended periods of time. When tensions did erupt, groups would simply move apart until things calmed down.  Living at Tsunkwe and being on government assistance created poverty and jealousy. N!ai touches on all of this in her song, which is beautiful and heartbreaking.

As I listened to N!ai’s song I immediately thought of Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die Blues.”  Both are startlingly frank and bleak.  Illness, in particular tuberculosis, was a frequent subject of American country and blues music in the first half of the 20th century. Jimmie Rodgers sang frequently about the disease, which ultimately killed him. “T.B. Blues” is a standard, and different versions have been performed over the years by Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. Sadly, sickness and pain are as universal as music.

Over the course of the fifty or so years that John Marshall documented their lives, the Ju/’hoansi lost much of their ancestral hunting grounds and were displaced to reservation-like homelands.  They had to adopt completely new, settled lifestyles. Disease and poverty devastated the tribe, but they also adapted to their new realities, and created conservancies and social institutions that help preserve their traditions. In many ways, the Ju/’hoansi experienced in a 50-year period what Native Americans experienced over the course of 200 years, as European settlement completely displaced many of their traditional lifestyles. And like Native Americans and other people all over the world, music has both connected the Ju/’hoansi to their past, and offered an outlet for expressing their anxieties, and joys, about their present and future.

It is hard for me to imagine people whose lives are more different from mine than the Ju/’hoansi, whose lives, in turn, are very different for the Yaqui’s, and the Pima’s, and the Bar Rerekat. And yet, by listening to their music and learning about what it means to them, while reflecting on what music means to me, I feel a connection to all of them.

Michael Pahn is the Media Archivist, specializing in audio, video, and motion picture film, at the National Museum of the American Indian. Currently, he is at work on a project that preserves ethnographic films of American Indians of North America, funded by Save America’s Treasures, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and internal Smithsonian funds.