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“They are learning how to share their thoughts. Wolfe said she wants the students to learn to use their voices to dream big. “Ultimately the students will work with different disciplines-choreography, music, visual art, literary art and music composition,” Vasudevan said. She was so inspired by the students, Vasudevan founded First Voices through her Thresh Collective, a performing arts organization founded by Vasudevan in 2005. Through that program, which also included Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad, Vasudevan first traveled to Montana and worked with the Lame Deer students. Lame Deer was selected as one of eight schools across the country to be a School of Promise. Susan Wolfe, Lame Deer art teacher, helped write a grant for Lame Deer schools to be included in a Turnaround Arts program. It strengthens them, it really does,” Standing Elk said. “That’s what helps them - keeping their culture alive. Standing Elk said he goes over 130 Cheyenne beliefs with them. “If they can recognize it, I tell them to just walk away from trouble. When he sees a student getting in trouble, he tells them, “It’s not the Cheyenne way. Standing Elk said the students are like sponges, picking up positive and negative behaviors through the people and circumstances they are exposed to. Seidel Standing Elk, a language and cultural teacher at Lame Deer High School, said the students have so much potential that he is seeing blossom through First Voices. She assigned different animals to each student, including a buffalo, an eagle and a deer. Haaland encouraged the students to tell the story through the eyes of an animal. Tami Haaland, a poet and acting dean at Montana State University-Billings, led the students in a workshop to build a modern interpretation of a Northern Cheyenne story about a race. The students have developed a close bond with each other, something necessary to allow them to fully express their dreams and hopes for the future. “I cried like a big baby,” Kaline said about the experience of reading her poem to the group. Her mother died two years ago, and Kaline is still finding ways to process her grief. Like others in the program, Kaline has experienced loss. The poem, “Dragonflies at the Sundance,” expressed how her mother came to her as a dragonfly to tell her everything will be OK. “I never poured by heart out on a piece of paper like that before,” Kaline said. Ten Lame Deer students were selected for the inaugural group in First Voices.ĭuring a workshop last week at Billings Open Studio, Kaline shared a poem she wrote about her mother. First Voices interweaves artistic creation of ancestral stories through digital media and a mentorship program for tribal youth. The first step for Kaline was to take a bold move forward by participating in First Voices, a project founded by New York City choreographer and dancer Preeti Vasudevan. Lame Deer High School junior Shandiin Kaline dreams of inspiring others with her actions and words.