This week on State of the Arts, we meet an all-woman indigenous drum group.

An educator changes lives through dance and a spotlight on art deco.

These stories and more on State of the Arts.

Hello, I'm Mary Paul.

Welcome to this week's show where we bring you stories from the arts world around the country.

First up, we head to Nevada to meet the Mankillers, an all-woman indigenous drum group.

Formed in 1991, the group represents various tribes and performs traditional music that evokes strength and healing.

(birds chirping) (upbeat music) The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony is a federally recognized, sovereign nation located here, right in the middle of Reno and Sparks, Nevada.

We have about 1,300 plus tribal members, and we represent our membership and descendancy of Washoe, Paiute, and Shoshone people.

We have 28 acres downtown.

We are located between Mill Street and Second Street.

That's the 28 acres.

We also have 15,000 acres in Hungry Valley.

(upbeat music) My name is Michon Eben.

I manage the Cultural Resource Program and Tribal Historic Preservation Office for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.

And I'm also the co-founder of the all-native women drum group, the Man Killers.

(upbeat music) The Mankillers began and were established at Humboldt State University in Northern California.

We were all college students.

And we just came together as friends.

We did sing with a co-ed drum group, so other male singers.

We were called the Humboldt State University Drum Group.

And the Humboldt State University Student Drum Group.

We would just get together and sing on campus for different indigenous events.

There was a gathering at Captain Jack's Stronghold.

And the Humboldt State student drum was there.

And several of the women were singing together.

And all of a sudden looked at each other and said, "Hey, you know, we sound really good."

We were singing and from that gathering, it was like, "Oh, the women have such different tones that it would be nice to get the women to sing together."

We decided to become a support group and begin meeting on the weekends and start drumming on a big drum.

We just began to practice more and more.

And then we were asked to sing on campus for an indigenous conference.

We decided, "Well, let's do this little song for this indigenous conference, but we need a name."

(drumming) Somebody had yelled out, "What about the Mankillers?"

Well, that name is a strong name in the Cherokee Nation.

That name is from Wilma Mankiller.

And Wilma Mankiller is a great role model.

She was the principal chief of her Cherokee Nation in the 80s and 90s.

She was an activist, an educator, brought a lot of good economic development to the Cherokee Nation.

And we decided to go with, "Okay, let's be the Man Killers."

And we knew that we needed to ask permission.

We just couldn't come out and use the name.

So we sent a letter to Wilma Mankiller, let her know who we all were.

And after her leaving this world, her nephew approached us and told us how they approved that name.

So our understanding is She took our letter to all the head men of the Cherokee Nation, and they passed our letter around and they gave us permission.

So hence, the Mankillers.

The Mankillers encompass many tribal nations throughout the United States.

I am from the village of Tuata, or Taos Pueblo, and Raramuri, the Running People.

I am Yaqui and Chicana.

So my tribe is from the Arizona area, Tucson.

I am Cherokee and Muscogee Creek and Tunica Choctaw Biloxi My father's people are Pyramid Lake Paiute, the Qui-ui-pa, and my mother's people are Tampisha Nua.

So that's Death Valley Shoshone.

When you see and hear us, you will know and understand who we are.

[drumming] After we started our first conference and did our first performance in public, we decided let's start learning songs and let's start going to powwows.

One of our songs is called "The Gathering Song," and it was given to us by Germaine Tremmel.

[drumming] Usually songs came to us by other drum groups that supported us.

Or we would ask permission in the right way, ask with an offering from other drum groups, and they would give us permission.

And then we started learning our own songs or catching our own songs.

The Mankiller women would come up with songs or would hear songs, would hear songs in nature or would hear songs in dreams.

We started songwriting and dreaming, and, you know, again, like Carrie said, catching songs.

And that's a beautiful process, you know, you're just living your life, and all of a sudden, a beautiful melody comes to you, and you just try to catch it, as you would like a poet or a writer.

[drumming] [guitar music] We have a sisterhood with the drum group, so it makes us stronger as women for ourselves, because we need that healing as women, as moms, as aunties, as grandmas, as cousins, you know, that women's spirituality is really important, and that connects us.

You know, I lost my sister a long time ago, and the drum helped me heal, so I can say that it helped me find sisters.

And I don't have any sisters, but I do here, and that's a wonderful, beautiful, fulfilling thing for me, just that feminine energy, that bond, that of other women.

And, you know, I didn't have that growing up, so it was a beautiful thing to get as a gift when I was 18, and it's just never left me.

And I think the drum refills us.

Sustenance.

Nurtures.

And again, loves and protects, and, you know, like the story of that drum is the heartbeat of the mother.

We come back to mother when we come back to sing.

(singing) It's exciting for me to be able to sing with the women because of the voices that we have, the different tones.

There was one comment one time that a male drum group member had said, "Oh, you almost sound as good as a man, drum groups," and it's like, well, that's not what we're trying to do.

We have our own voice, we have our own tones, and we're not here to compete with the man.

We have our own way of singing, and it's just a beautiful thing.

(singing) When we first started out-- It was a big deal.

It was a big deal.

It was very controversial.

Because men can only sit at the drum, and that's specifically to certain tribal traditions.

And then after a while, people became accustomed to us as a group.

We have a lot of stories where people at first came to be upset with us, and then they changed their tune.

For 35 years, what we've gone through, there's been really great, good, and some obstacles that we had to go through to become who we are.

But I think once people understood who we were as individuals, as women in our jobs, women in our communities, and the type of work we've done, I think that that has changed and we're more accepted.

And I'm really proud of Nevada and my relatives in Nevada for being so supportive and embracing the Mankillers.

(singing) Affectionately known as Miss Tee, Tamaira Sandifer is the founder of Studio T Arts and Entertainment, a space that provides arts training, programming, and resources to youth and their families.

We take a trip to California to meet Sandifer and hear more about her dedication to youth advocacy and the art of dance.

(music) I think the word I would use is "it's critical."

Art is critical.

My name is Tamaira Sandifer Most people call me Miss Tee.

I spend a lot of time working with little kids, and "Miss Tamaira" was a mouthful, and so they started calling me Miss Tee, and it just kind of stuck.

For Tamaira Sandifer, Miss Tee, early experiences growing up in Richmond, California shaped not only her art, but her purpose.

Becoming Miss Tee was a means of surviving a difficult childhood that strengthened and empowered her to create a thriving organization that's been changing lives for generations.

As a kid, I always danced.

I was a very shy kid, but I had a love, a passion for it, and not only dancing myself, but also teaching it.

I had a little brother and a lot of little sisters, and so one of the ways that we maintained a child-likeness growing up in some of the traumatic challenges that we experienced was we danced and we sang, and then the 80s happened, and everybody who's anybody wanted a breakdance, they wanted a lock, they wanted the pop, they wanted, you know, Soul Train was the dance that's coming down the line.

Michael Jackson and Thriller and his music, MTV happened.

People loved watching it, but they didn't know how to do it.

For whatever reason, I had the grace and ability to pick up those moves and then teach people how to do it, and so I became the girl that if you wanted to notice steps, well, Tamaira can do it.

It wasn't until I was in my 20s that someone said, "Hey, can we hire you to do choreography for us?"

I learned that there was a whole world where people got paid to do what they love, and so I spent the great majority of, you know, in the developmental phase of Studio T just listening to our kids and our families, and then I targeted communities where we were losing young people, and so, you know, I started to, you know, try to do the traditional dance studio route, but I learned that everybody couldn't get to me.

I closed my studio doors, and I just concentrated efforts in the streets.

I'm going to you rather than wait for you to come to me.

I would just try to solve the problem, and so a lot of the programs we have are just me attempting to be a problem solver when I recognize the pattern in the community of disruption, of pain, or deficit.

After years of successful classes here, workshops there, creating the national get-up and move events, and more, Miss Tee realized it was time to establish a home base.

Studio T, now Studio T Arts and Entertainment Innovation Factory, is 44,000 square feet of real estate in Sacramento on Del Paso Boulevard.

It's become a critical creative hub, extending the reach through movement, healing, self-expression, knowledge, and most important, access.

And so I knew I had to build something that became home for the kids that we serve.

Most people would have me build what I'm building in Los Angeles or New York, and they did ask, and I said, "No, no."

There's such great fear in our young people around making mistakes when they don't understand that it's the mistakes you make that train and develop you to do things in excellence.

I feel so honored that I got to be on their path with them.

I think it's... I think that, you know, everybody comes into this world with a piece to the world puzzle.

And when you watch somebody, that all the odds just seem so stacked against them.

But then they show up in life and they do the thing that they were sent to do.

I mean, that's always been one of the remarkable parts for me of this entire experience.

And when I built the company, you know, I did this while I was raising three kids, a single parent, three remarkable humans, and, you know, building a company, you know, while you're raising kids, that's not an easy thing.

Miss Tee has become a living testament to the transformative power of art, believing when art is set in motion, it can reshape the world.

And so I discovered me in the process, but I also discovered how to help other people discover them.

And then, you know, then you start to see some of the outcomes in people's lives, where statistics say that they should be dead or they should be addicted or they should be incarcerated, but they're not.

My hope for the future is... I could say a couple things.

One is that, you know, I'll live to see generations being served through what's been built.

I would say the other thing is that the world will know that I was here, and I did my part.

Since 1904, Rose Ironworks in Cleveland, Ohio, has been producing decorative metalwork in the United States.

The company is having its moment in the spotlight, thanks to an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Tracing the company's transition from Art Nouveau to Art Deco in the early 20th century, we find out more about the exhibit and this forward-thinking, family-run business.

Metal is very malleable.

It's a very friendly medium if you treat it with the proper respect and care.

My dad made the observation that anything that could be drawn could actually be produced or created in metal.

Rose Ironworks is really a Cleveland treasure.

It is an American treasure.

It is the oldest continually operating decorative metalwork manufacturer, manufacturer and designer in the United States.

It was founded by Martin Rose in 1904 here in Cleveland.

At that time, it was beginning to boom in automotive production and steel, heavy manufacturing.

That brought a focus on the millionaires, if you will, that were building their residences along with their companies.

Millionaires Row was created at that time downtown, and he did an awful lot of work for those homes.

When my grandfather arrived in Cleveland, blacksmiths fixed buggies and shoot horses.

They did not do very refined, delicate work.

In order to show potential customers what he could do with this new skill set, he crafted a sprig of roses, which he carried with him on sales visits to demonstrate what his personal skills were and what could be done with metal.

Martin Rose, my grandfather, was born in a very small town in Hungary, which is now part of the Ukraine.

As legends go, when he was very young on the way to school, he became enthralled with a blacksmith shop and loved stopping and watching.

That led to him going through the whole apprenticeship program there, working in the shop, learning to be an art blacksmith.

My grandfather came to this country in 1903.

He chose to join family in Cleveland rather than those in New York City, because as the story goes, he wanted to be a big fish in a little pond instead of a little fish in a big pond.

The exhibition Rose Ironworks and Art Deco really looks at the first 30 years of the existence of Rose Ironworks here in Cleveland.

So it goes from about 1904 to the early 1930s.

Really explaining the connection of Martin Rose to the European tradition of ornamental metalwork, how he brought those techniques, that level of sophistication and education to Cleveland, and how he really responded to movements in Europe, including Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

Art Nouveau at the time was a very organic, flowing motif, but what happened in the modern influence was it became much more angular, simpler.

Art Deco really refers to a style that was brought into being as a result of this 1925 Paris exhibition.

It really has a very modern style.

It really capitalized on sort of new materials.

Art Deco was very much about the mechanical and about the new and about forward-looking style.

In terms of the Art Deco design that was produced by Rose Iron, we simplified pieces.

We focused on negative space and a balance between positive and negative space.

Very, very much the angular, the triangles, the curves, the floral motifs in the carved work that represent the mainstay of Deco at the time.

The Muse with Violin screen is one of the more iconic pieces produced by Rose Iron Works.

Over the years, the Muse with Violin screen has been shown at numerous museums all over the United States.

It is probably one of the most recognized examples of the decorative style, and it's enjoyed a lot of publicity.

The Muse with Violin is about a five-foot square piece.

It's surrounded by six decorative floral patterns, and the center section, which is the focus for the name, is a figure that was pretty much contributed to Josephine Baker.

She was a very, very popular entertainer in America as well as Paris.

It's an incredible tour de force of metalwork.

I think when Bob Rose and his team started looking at it with the idea to make a new version, they were really impressed by how many different techniques, tools, really inventive methods were employed to make this screen.

My concept was to create the identical background, the identical outer frame, but with a different center section using Josephine Baker's image, using similar shapes for flowers and leaves and petals.

Muse with Flower depicts the same figure reaching up and smelling a flower.

And that is the fun part of this work, is that when you take a piece of metal and you stretch it and you form it, you get all of this right on the end as you're working.

By the way, back here we have a... Melvin Mahrer Rose, my father, worked in our company his entire life.

Growing up in our family, there was never anything other than Rose Iron Works.

So, I mean, I can remember as a child coming to work with my father, he'd work and I'd go out in the shop.

Dad was, in addition to being highly skilled as an artist, he was forced to be creative about ways to keep the company alive.

Melvin Rose took over Rose Iron Works from Martin, and he was really responsible for turning the main occupation of the business towards a more industrial side.

And I remember stories where he told the experience of taking blacksmiths who were used to making flowers and stems, and he had to teach them decimals and how to read very, very precise calipers in order to make industrial work.

So that's when we shifted to the industrial side.

I remember quite vividly being in the Focus Gallery a few years ago when the Monet Show was there.

And now I'm looking at it and said, "We're in the same gallery as Monet?

You gotta be kidding!"

It's an amazing honor to have the show, to be mentioned.

I mean, we tease a lot here about being a best-kept secret.

We don't talk a lot about ourselves.

We just make metal things.

Art exists at an intersection where people of all walks of life can come together.

Arthur Norman is both an artist and an entrepreneur, and this next piece explores how community-building is the centerpiece of his work.

I would say that I'm a creative.

I mean, the first three letters of my name is "art."

So I've always identified as an artist, but I enjoy building space and using space to be a bridge to community.

With this space, we want to bring back the original tin ceilings, the original baseboard, and just any of those historic components that we can restore unique to this area.

I find a lot of inspiration in history.

I would say between history and also traveling, and being able to see different cultures and just how they articulate their space.

Historic preservation is very important to me.

As we tell these stories of what was once here previously, I think it's important to build upon that.

And we don't always take care of our history, but being able to expound on what was once before is something that's important to me, for sure.

We're currently sitting in Brownsville for those of you who aren't familiar.

Historically, black neighborhood.

The building is about 100 years old, and as we purchased or as we went through that process of purchasing the building, I sat with the owner for about an hour just talking about the history of the neighborhood.

We talked about how Jewish and black people worked together in this neighborhood.

A lot of times, the Jewish people would own the buildings, and black people would operate the businesses that were in the building.

And that relationship helped to kind of stand up this neighborhood.

The beginning process is a lot of conversation, just understanding what either the client wants or what I want to get out of the project.

Just a lot of conversation around ideation.

What does it look like?

Once we kind of have those conversations and flush out direction that we want to go, moving into mood boards and look and feel overall aesthetic.

And then from there, we're jumping into overall design.

What kind of finishes?

What kind of logo touches do we want to do?

So it really depends on the project.

That kind of guides how we approach it.

But I would say conversation is that first step.

So as you're coming into this space, we're using all of the surfaces as storage, but also as creative expression.

But as you're looking at the wall, it's a mixture of both.

Some of them are gifts that people have given us.

Some of them are artists' work from the community.

Some of them are posters from just my travel.

I'm like infatuated with print, having printed material, being able to touch and feel.

So when I travel, I'm looking for books, business cards and posters.

So when somebody walks into this space, I want them to feel like, okay, I can create in here.

The barbershop up front is like, I'm coming here to get a trim.

I want to feel attractive or handsome after I leave here.

So when you walk in, those are the kind of feelings that we want people to have.

Thank you for joining us this week on State of the Arts.

We'll be back next week with a new episode.

Until then, I'm Mary Paul.

Goodbye.