This panel and object exhibition highlights Native people who have been active participants in contemporary music for nearly a century. Musicians like Russell "Big Chief" Moore (Gila River Indian Community), Rita Coolidge (Cherokee), Buffy Sainte-Marie (Cree), and the group Redbone are a few of the Native performing artists who have had successful careers in popular music. Many have been involved in various forms of popular music—from jazz and blues to folk, country, and rock. Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture tells their stories and histories, and provides visitors the opportunity to hear samples by music greats and discover musicians with whom those exceptional musicians collaborated. Visitors will also learn about artists who inspired the musical greats as well as the contemporary artists they themselves influenced.

In conjunction with the July 1 opening of Up Where We Belong, guitarist and singer/songwriter Derek Miller (Mohawk) will perform a mix of blues and rock, including many songs by musicians featured in the exhibition, such as Link Wray, Jesse Ed Davis, Peter LaFarge, Jimi Hendrix, Redbone, Robbie Robertson, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. In 2002, Miller released his debut album, Music Is the Medicine, for which he garnered a coveted Juno Award, Canada's equivalent to the GRAMMYS. Most recently he performed and was seen around the world at the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

To honor collaborators on the exhibition, there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 7, at 4 p.m. in the Sealaska Gallery. Visitors are invited to then enjoy the Living Earth Festival concert at 5 p.m. on the Welcome Plaza, featuring the New Orleans band, Dumpstaphunk, who will be performing with special guests.

Listen to a selection of music in the exhibition.

Meet the Native peoples of the Chesapeake Bay region–what is now Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware–through photographs, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, and interactives. This compact exhibition educates visitors on the continued Native presence in the region, and provides an overview of the history and events from the 1600s to the present that have impacted the lives of the Nanticoke, Powhatan, and Piscataway tribes. The exhibition was curated by Gabrielle Tayac, Ph.D. (Piscataway).

Our Universes focuses on indigenous cosmologies—worldviews and philosophies related to the creation and order of the universe—and the spiritual relationship between humankind and the natural world. Organized around the solar year, the exhibition introduces visitors to indigenous peoples from across the Western Hemisphere who continue to express the wisdom of their ancestors in celebration, language, art, spirituality, and daily life.

The community galleries feature eight cultural philosophies—those of the Pueblo of Santa Clara (Espanola, New Mexico, USA), Anishinaabe (Hollow Water and Sagkeeng Bands, Manitoba, Canada), Lakota (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, USA), Quechua (Communidad de Phaqchanta, Cusco, Peru), Hupa (Hoopa Valley, California, USA), Q'eq'chi' Maya (Cobán, Guatemala), Mapuche (Temuco, Chile), and Yup'ik (Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, USA). The design of these galleries reflects each community's interpretation of the order of the world.The exhibition also highlights the Denver (Colorado) March Powwow, the North American Indigenous Games, and the Day of the Dead as seasonal celebrations that bring Native peoples together.

Historically, Native people have been portrayed in textbooks in narrow or inaccurate ways. In Our Peoples, Native Americans tell their own stories—their own histories—and in this way the exhibition presents new insights into, and different perspectives on, history.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida, Tapirapé (Mato Grosso, Brazil), Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma (USA), Tohono O'odham Nation (Arizona, USA), Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation (North Carolina, USA), Nahua (Guerrero, Mexico), Ka'apor (Maranhão, Brazil), and Wixaritari (Durango, Mexico)—sometimes known as Huichol—were the first communities and tribes to share their stories with visitors in the Our Peoples gallery. Two new tribal communities added their voices in 2007, when exhibitions representing the Blackfeet Nation (Browning, Montana) and Chiricahua Apache (Mescalero, New Mexico) were rotated into the gallery, replacing the Seminole and Tapirapé installations.

The main story of Our Peoples focuses on the last 500 years of Native history and shows how the arrival of newcomers in the Western Hemisphere set the stage for one of the most momentous events in human history. In the struggle for survival, nearly every Native community wrestled with the impact of deadly new diseases and weaponry, the weakening of traditional spirituality, and the seizure of homelands by invading governments. But the story of these last five centuries is not entirely a story of destruction. It is also about how Native people intentionally and strategically kept their cultures alive.

Our Lives reveals how residents of eight Native communities—the Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians (California, USA), the urban Indian community of Chicago (Illinois, USA), Yakama Nation (Washington State, USA), Igloolik (Nunavut, Canada), Kahnawake (Quebec, Canada), Saint-Laurent Metis (Manitoba, Canada), Kalinago (Carib Territory, Dominica), and the Pamunkey Tribe (Virginia, USA)—live in the 21st century. Through their stories, visitors learn about the deliberate and often difficult choices indigenous people make in order to survive economically, save their languages from extinction, preserve their cultural integrity, and keep their traditional arts alive.