Elexa Dawson
Elexa Dawson is a practitioner of the soul. Her red-dirt honey vocals and rhythmic guitar style deliver a sound that hits home. Both familiar and intriguing, her songs speak of the earth and community, and celebrate all relationships, from mother and child to friend and lover.
Kansas-based and Oklahoma-born, Elexa is a songwriter, educator, community organizer, Folk Alliance Region Midwest's Board President, and serves on the Board of Directors of Music to Life. Elexa is a Kansas Touring Roster Artist, Music to Life's Juried Artist, and Mid-America Arts Alliance Interchange Fellow. Former fellowships include First Peoples Fund and Western Arts Alliance Native Launchpad.
Elexa is the founder and director of Good Way Gardens, a land-based arts organization, and is co-founder of Weda Skirts, one of Kansas' best-beloved female folk ensembles. She runs an independent label, Turns Out Records. She’s also a founding member of popular folk groups The Power Lilies and Heyleon.
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Workshops
Educational Offerings
I'm happy to customize a cultural or educational event to the needs and budget of any venue.
Land-Based Songwriting (1-3 hours, ages 12 & up)
Place is central to our understanding of ourselves as individuals and communities. Participants will find words to convey feelings through a meditation on a place. Notice the textures, moods, and sensations of your spatial memory. Discover how the places that made us inform our creativity and worldview. Circular activity, no instruments needed. Facilitated by acclaimed Potawatomi songwriter, Elexa Dawson.
Indigenous Music Today (30 minutes, lecture-style with A/V, All Ages)
Heritage is not just history. Celebrated Potawatomi musician Elexa Dawson guides audiences down a rabbit hole of contemporary Indigenous musicians from across the sovereign nations of Turtle Island through their expressive music videos.
Indigenous Foods (1 - 3 hours, kitchen, 12 & up)
When you eat lasagna, you know you're eating Italian. When you eat popcorn, do you get a sense of cultural attachment? Adaptable to a variety of seasons and settings, this class, Elexa Dawson explores common North American Indigenous foods and places them in the cultural perspective of the peoples who developed them.
(Here is a recent news article featuring this presentation)
Southern Potawatomi Perspective (1 hour, lecture-style with A/V, adult)
Presented by celebrated Native American speaker and songwriter Elexa Dawson, this talk explores themes of Native traditional knowledge, and philosophy of kinship with the land. Dawson discusses how Indigenous ways of viewing the land and community can lead us forward. A member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, Dawson explains the Great Lakes origins, historical migrations, and current culture of the Potawatomi, spotlighting vibrant and living people with sovereign nations and current relevance in modern society.
Seedsongs (10 minutes, on-site at festival, All Ages)
Our seeds are our past, and our future. The Anishinabe people have had agreements with plants that have sustained us, even as we have cared for them. Participants will receive a seed and a vessel to plant it in, and a song to sing to their seeds as they grow. As we plant these seeds, we’ll learn about our responsibility to our foods to nurture them as they nourish us.
"...this collaboration is magic" - Raye Zaragoza
Deep in the red dirt country hills of Oklahoma, Elexa Dawson and Stanley Hotel built a spaceship. Wanderlust is described as “a soul-stirring journey through earth and sky.” Each song beckons the listener to sojourn through passages formerly unexplored. From the first song’s expedition to the outer limits of the human experience to the last guided meditation, delivering a message from the ancestors, this album is an epic quest worthy of your best traveling shoes. Each song is a stop on the tour, gathering sweet sentiments of loneliness, love, connection, and completion. Dance with the transient and get High on the Street, and the lovers with Rainbows in their eyes. There is such a Lot of Life to live. Sit out at night and gaze at the southwestern sky, listening to what the Lonely Coyote has to say. Go down where the honeysuckle grows with the Sweet Sisters. Mother Earth is always inviting us to stay a little while. The Will of the World will tug at your heartstrings, inspiring that irresistible Wanderlust that takes you on the adventure to find the Answer.