Discover FNCI/Our Staff

Georgia Wettlin-Larsen (Assiniboine/Nakota)

Georgia Wettlin-Larsen (Whirling Cloud Woman), (Assiniboine/Nakota) . Georgia is currently the Program Director for the St. Paul, Minnesota based, First Nations Composer Initiative. She brings a unique blend of over ten years of social service experience and national renown as an American Indian musician whose emphasis is in the perpetuation and preservation of traditional story and song. Most recently Wettlin-Larsen provides contracted services for the State of Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Family and Children’s Division. She travels statewide facilitating training on the Indian Child Welfare Act, historical and contemporary Federal Indian Policy and traditional child welfare practices. She is a strong advocate of music as an essential factor in child development, and has released a CD on the Allies label, From the Sky: Native Stories in Song and Sound, that is especially accessible to children. Her vocal talent and extensive knowledge of songs from diverse Native traditions have produced dramatic interpretations of Native story and song for radio (Song of the Land, NPR), television (Northern Exposure, CBS) and the Folkways recording label of the Smithsonian Institution. (Heartbeat:Voices of First Nations Women) Georgia has had the pleasure of sharing performing venues throughout Indian Country with many other notable performers including, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, John Trudell, Rosalie Jones of Daystar Dance Theater, Sharon Burch, R.Carlos Nakai, Pete Seeger, and comedian Charlie Hill to name but a few. Georgia’s primary goal is to work to shatter stereotypes which plague traditional American Indian music and to educate the public about its true essence and inherent beauty and purpose.

 

 

Jewell Arcoren (Sisseton/Sicangu)

is an enrolled member of the Sissteon Wahpeton Sioux Tribe and comes to FNCI with a background in the arts and a passion for American Indian people.  Jewell loves to assist in setting up programs and see them develop to their full potential.  Most recently she has set in place a youth program for Dream of Wild Health, an Indigenous Farm program that works with inner city American Indian youth. Jewell has also been instrumental in setting up two women’s groups; the Dakota Women’s Society and Dream of Wild Health Women’s Cooperative. Both of these groups are vibrantly alive and functioning well among the local Native community. Jewell also provides presentations on traditional Indigenous foods in correlation with health and wellness for American Indian people and diabetes prevention.  She loves to research, collect and cook old/new traditional recipes.  Jewell’s passion and interest in revitalizing Dakota quillwork designs led her to develop and coordinate a four part series of quillwork at Intermedia Arts of Minnesota designed to reach and teach urban Dakota men, women and children the importance of quillwork.  She has also coordinated a four part series of presentations at Fort Snelling, Minnesota with Allies: media art, sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society. The series, created for Metro area Dakota people, offered information and experience in Dakota cultural history and art, including quillwork.   Jewell has been a video producer, associate producer and has helped produce Dakota contemporary media. She has served as an associate curator with Two Rivers Gallery.  In her spare time she quills, researches Dakota quillwork designs and is learning to brain tan hides.   Presently, Jewell is pursuing her BA in Business and marketing at a local Twin Cities college. She is a mother of three and grandmother of four. 

 

 

Raven Chacon (Dine')

Raven Chacon is currently the web master for the First Nations Composer Initiative. Please see Our Advisors for biographical information.