Denver's Indigenous Comic and Art Festival is on the way!
ayA Con is a celebration of indigeneity hosted by and highlighting North American Indigenous creators.
This all-inclusive family festival will feature comic creators, bead artists, musicians, digital illustrators, designers, dancers, and much more.
Come celebrate your heritage and build connections with us!
Schedule:
June 10th, 2023
McNichols Civic Center
11:30am -12pm : Travis Mammedaty - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Travis Mammedaty is a Kiowa/Seneca-Cayuga artist Join him for a demonstration and a lesson in drum songs and their meanings.
12pm - 12:30pm : United Indigenous Dancers - Lvl 3 Main Stage
The United Indigenous Dancers are a cultural awareness dance group founded in 2015. In this performance, they will be showcasing powwow dance styles and sharing the stories behind them.
12:45pm -1:45pm : Live Art Collaboration - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Join special guest Wendy Pini and ayA Con organizer Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand for a rare live art collaboration!
2pm - 2:30pm : The Social System - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Niko Martinez, known by his artist name “Social System” is a dual spirit creator based entirely on originality. His lyrics bounce back with a specific lyrical technique that brings out the pride he has in his native people and the inspiration he draws from Hip-Hop.
3pm - 3:30pm : Cipriano - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Cipriano is a Latin Low Rock trio based in Denver Colorado. Cipriano uses both indigenous and Latin elements in his music.
4pm - 4:30pm : Ailani - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Ailani is an 19 -year old singer-songwriter with multiple releases. Ailani’s music has a heartfelt indie pop-rock feel.
4:45pm - 5:15pm : Sage Bond - Lvl 3 Main Stage
Hailing from the Four Corners region within the Navajo Nation, Sage Bond writes with the influences of personal life, culture, and heavy metal.
Denver Art Museum
Wild Plum room - Cosmic Sky
10:30am - 11:25am : Streaming with 5elect 5creen
With over 1.7k followers on Facebook, 5elect5creen strives to build a safe community where viewers can watch game play throughs, reactions, movie reviews, and sports news. The 5elect5creen channel is brother/sister duo of creatives from Colorado that enjoy media creation. Using Twitch, Youtube, and other social media platforms to creatively share with the world, they are committed to bringing clean quality content while building an interactive community. #chooseurdestiny and follow us on linktr.ee/5elect5creen
11:30am - 12:25pm : Skobots! Indigenous languages & Robots!
Join special guest Danielle Boyer and the first cultural robot... designed entirely by Indigenous leaders. A personalized, wearable, and interactive Indigenous language revitalization robot that senses motion and speaks our languages. The students build the robots themselves. Built to take tech learning out of the classroom, the robots were made to supplement community language learning for free. It has been a success in enabling our youth to bring the robots home to learn with their families and in creating learning tools they resonate with.
1:30pm - 2:25pm : Mapping Interior of Indigenous Horror
Mapping the Interior of Indigenous Horror: An exploration and celebration of Indigenous Horror and its impact on pop culture.
Denver Art Museum
Ruby Red room - Red Blossom
10:30am - 11:25am : How to Draw Manga Art Making
Join manga artist Nightmaric Spirit and members of Nan Desu Kan (Colorado's premiere anime convention) to learn about personalized manga style and how to create your own manga characters!
11:30am - 12:25pm : Aspiring Artist Assemble!
Participants of our Novice Artist Program voice their experiences and dreams as artists embarking on journeys to build a career path, side hustles, and new opportunities to creatively explore.
1:30pm - 2:25pm : Healing Power of Music
Join musical doula, Melissa Ivey in a musical panel as she shares the many projects she is working on and how she uses music to heal and connect intergenerationally with community.
2:30pm - 3:25pm : Hoops of Destiny
A 3-person team that is working together on an indigenous comic. Based on hoop dancers that are superhero’s in a post-apocalyptic world that has been invaded by aliens. They are time traveling and into different worlds n out and magic and indigenous unity TEAM work. We also have other creators that have come on board to support us. You will meet the creator of “Hoops of Destiny” Antony Falcon the brains behind this. Artist and Pencils by Casey Mike and co-writer and actual hoop dancer ShanDien LaRance.
Denver Art Museum
Sky Blue room - Blue Skies
10:30am - 11:25am : Closet Cosplay & Cultural Twists
Special guest, Wendy Pini, and Tomorrow Maker Films founder, Marcos Garibay, host an informative artmaking activity all about cosplay and personalizing characters.
11:30am - 12:25pm : Radical Imagination and Indigenous Futures
Youth will learn about Radical Imagination and Indigenous Futurism as a tool for their personal self-preservation and to gain radical hope in trying and difficult times that they will face as Indigenous peoples. This lesson seeks to help youth honor their shared knowledge and stories for the future by reflecting on the past and present. In this lesson, youth will see examples of Radical Imagination from Black and Indigenous poets or artists, and will create their own
poem that uses a radical imagination technique.
1:30pm - 2:25pm : Special Makeup Effects
Special guest, season 6 winner of Face Off, Rashaad Santiago shares his journey as a makeup effects artist and how it lead to having his own studio, and a career making monster movie effects full-time.
2:30pm - 3:25pm : Augmented Reality and AI
Augmented reality artists, special guests, Marlena Myles, and Sabastian Bustos share a discussion about the use of AR and AI in contemporary Indigenous art
3:30pm - 4:25pm : That’s My Jam- Karaoke games
Do you like to sing along with Disney songs?
Are you the Karaoke king/queen of your hometown? Then this melody-making panel is for you!
Break the ice with creative song-based games and win small prizes!
