Supaman brings life, hope to Bonners Ferry

Supaman’s recent performance, blending Native American traditions, music, dance, and history with hip hop and rap, was loudly appreciated by a big audience in Bonners Ferry.

Supaman shared the stage at the Becker Auditorium with DJ Element, a Native hip hop celebrity in his own right who is featured in the last episode of season 2 of the PBS series “Native America." 

After he was introduced by local sponsors, who stated how grateful they were that he found time in a very busy performance schedule, he asked each audience member to turn to the person on their right. “Give one another a high 5. Me and my brother,” he said, gesturing toward DJ Element, “wherever we travel, we know it’s a privilege, and we have a beautiful life.

In this country alone, there are more than 600 Native tribes,” he said, and each tribe has different ceremonies, cultures and languages.

"We all dance for the people watching who are in wheelchairs, may be sick and need healing, or their hearts are heavy with the loss of loved ones," he said.

“We were taught that people can see your heart, so if you are harboring any ill feelings, go to that person and make it right. Earth is billions of years old, but we only get 80 years of that, so we need to live it up,” he said. 

“We always start with a prayer that is thousands of years old. If I had a coin in my pocket, people would say, ‘Wow,’” and it seemed the irony was not lost on the local audience.

Then, in respectful silence, everyone listened as Supaman spoke his opening prayer in Apsaalooke (the Native name for his tribe, the one Europeans called “Crow”). He later explained that the name Apsaalooke means “good fortune.”

Christian Parrish Takes The Gun was born in Seattle to parents who both suffered from alcoholism, he said after the show. His mother’s maiden name was Takes The Gun. 

Christian said that although his father took his own life at a young age, he was blessed that his mother became sober and gave her children a better life, teaching them the most important lessons.

During the performance, Supaman shared many of those life lessons, and his openness with the audience showed how much they appreciated what he said. “Learn to live in the present moment. Be gentle. Don’t judge each other. Be a reader. Get perspective into your life through reading and travel. Most of all, spend time with people you don’t agree with.”

He began the action-filled, audience-participatory performance by explaining that the fancy dance, with which so many associated tribal customs come, actually comes from the Ponca people of Oklahoma. “I’m from Montana, so it’s an adopted style,” he said, explaining that fancy dance started when natives who wanted to earn money working in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show discovered the fancier and flashier Natives were being selected most often to perform.

His costume’s elaborate beadwork was fashioned by his wife, who owns Choke Cherry Creek Designs, and their daughter. He told how he helped his son appreciate the women’s work by pointing out before school that his wife started her beadwork with her 5 a.m. coffee. “I told him she was expressing her mother’s love for him in the beadwork.”

The dancing Supaman was dazzling to the eyes, his bright-white fringes and colorful beadwork swirling around his arms and legs. A video of his dancing played behind him, and at all times he was accompanied by the DJ controlling background music and sounds.

One of the highlights was when Supaman called for six children to volunteer, and 12 showed up. He brought everyone up on stage and told each one to create a specific type of sound (wind, snake, humming, for example). 

The performer recorded each of the kids’ contributions and played them back to the audience's enthusiastic applause. The last volunteer, teenager Riley Thompson, produced the phrase “Have Fun With It,” and the audience went wild, repeating his words in time with the music.

Throughout the performance, Supaman peppered his talk with history, culture, and humor, which brought much laughter. One of those moments was between dances when he did a moonwalk in his soft leather moccasins. “Shout-out to MJ (Michael Jackson) — rest in peace,” he said.

Everyone, regardless of age, enjoyed his calls from the stage and the chance to join together as an audience to reply. Example: Supaman called out “Lions and Tigers and Bears …” and “Oh, my” came back to him from every part of the large auditorium.

Many of those in the filled Becker Auditorium were family members of middle school and high school students he had performed for earlier in the day. After the show, dozens lined up to take selfies with the performers. One parent was wearing beaded earrings she said were Kiowa, and Supaman chatted with her about different tribal cultures. Another told him that she had thought her kids would not want to come to the night’s program after seeing him during the day, “but they insisted we come to hear him, and I’m glad they did.”

Supaman told the crowd that everyone is on their own journey.

"Our people fasted, prayed, and played medicine music," he said. "Music that makes you feel good in your heart, that’s medicine.”

Then he asked for a show of hands for each kind of music, from hip hop, country to rock, adding, “It shows intelligence when we listen to all genres of music.”

It was noticeable how many of the seniors in the audience, including three from Bonner County, were moving their hands and tapping their feet with the beat. A local senior told him after the performance that he had made her like hip hop. Bloom Hill resident Dian Seider approached performance sponsors and told each one, “Thank you. I wish we had more.”

When the show began, Jennifer Porter, chairwoman of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, introduced the Crow performer, saying, “I first met Christian five or six years ago and said I’d get him back here one day.” 

Boundary County Human Rights Task Force Chair Barb Russell told the audience that she had attended the assemblies for both middle school and high school, “and he made me smile and cry at the same time.” She later explained that Porter had sent the school and Boundary Human Rights Task Force links to Supaman’s videos, and the tribe, schools, and task force worked together to make possible his appearance in Bonners Ferry. 

Human Rights Task Force member Elsie Hollenbeck added, “We need to appreciate our tribe all year around, and we’re glad they were so willing to step up and get a grant to finance Supaman coming here for this community outreach.”

Russell added that what meant the most to her was “the way he uses his talents and hip hop to totally connect to the kids.”