The month of November was Native American Heritage month, and Hillsborough Community College held a Native American Powwow at the Ybor City campus. On Nov. 2, HCC invited a group of Native Americans to demonstrate their native dancing style and display pieces of art from their Native American culture. You could hear drums beating from a block away as students piled into the courtyard of the Ybor City campus. On one side of the courtyard, the Student Government Association served lunch as students made jewelry from recycled materials and personalized leather bracelets engraved with letters of their own choice. There was also a table for students to sit at while making a personalized dream catcher. On the other side of the courtyard, there was Native American dancing. A man sat at a drum chanting while a dancer focused intently on interpreting the beat of the drum. They invited the students, teachers, and all that were there to join along with them in one of the dances; they told everyone to get in a circle side by side as the music started playing. One young Native American sat on the outside of the circle and played the drums. People in the circle were then shown how to dance to the steps of the drum, in a two step with one foot in place of the other, and as the dancers were taking their twosteps, they moved around in a uniformed circle. They danced while holding hands, eventually following the lead of one another, each person following the next as they made their way through the audience like a snake.

     They also opened an art exhibit dedicated to Native American art. On Nov. 10, the art gallery at the performing arts building in Ybor City hosted the opening of a Native American art gallery. A teacher of humanities for 15 years, Stan Natchez, brought his Native American art from Santa Fe, New Mexico. His art is a document of the 21st century, using comic strips, maps, and American currency. With enough art being to be suitable for a museum, guests were treated to over 20 pieces of art in this gallery.  At the opening of the exhibit, guests enjoyed a display of food while he spoke about his art saying, “I’m really painting with a lot of love and compassion, I feel I’m very fortunate to be Native American…and still be a modern man.” Natchez went on to say, “If you want to document today, it’s the world market, the stock market, commodities, housing market, whatever happens in this country, we affect the whole planet…so I ask all of you to examine your own minds.” Open to the public, his art will be on display until Dec. 9.