Watch the entire Rainbow Warrior Festival at www.viddler.com/explore/Chance...
This is an amazing video of the late Floyd Red Crow Westerman performing Kris Kristofferson's 'They Killed Him' (thanks AuroraKismet ;-) ) at the Rainbow Warrior Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico in August of 1988.
I had the privilege of stage managing that event and of all the 20+ amazing acts on the bill, this song stuck out as one of the most moving of the entire 12 hours of music. Authentic, powerful, moving...real.
I was producer of an event a few months following this event in LA at the Director's Guild theater. Floyd was invited to lead the invocation. Turns out he walked down the main isle with a burning bundle of sage...that was about to set off the fire alarm, trigger the sprinklers and send 500 people out the door, ruining the event. He didn't know...and I didn't know that this would be an issue....but there it was...bigger than life. I tried to communicate that he needed to snuff out the sage but he went on with his invocation (which, of course, was beautiful)...and there I am...the white boy idiot...flailing my arms for him to put out the fire...and him looking at me like I'm, well, the white boy idiot. Afterwards I approached him and apologized, explained the situation with the fire department and all...and he said...'Well, I guess that's another good example of 'a clash of cultures'' and turned away. What do you say to that? It's too true. I wanted to go hide under a rock but we had an event to do...but that stuck with me.
I loved Floyd's performance...from the heart of a true Sage...to you.
Enjoy with love....
Chance
26 сен 2008
