The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux – The Covered Wagon was an epic silent movie released in 1923. When the movie was screened, a live orchestra performed the soundtrack was p by a live orchestra.
BCM received grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and raising matching funds. There’s a facebook fund raising event that expires at the end of December 2022. You can also contribute any amount $5 to $500 to support the production!
“The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux” will have a new soundtrack performed.
What if a contemporary soundtrack was composed and performed as the accompaniment to The Covered Wagon? University of Wyoming music professor Anne Guzzo was commissioned to compile a new soundtrack for the Redux project to be performed by the Boulder Symphony and the Northern Arapaho Eagle Drum and Singers.
Watch the trailer and learn more about the production which is planned to be performed live and recorded.
Why Boulder? In 1864, hysteria was rampant from skirmishes between settlers and tribal members. In response, Fort Chambers was constructed east of Boulder where 100 local recruits were trained as members of the 3rd Volunteer Cavalry who eventually participated in the infamous Sand Creek Massacre.
The plan is to screen The Covered Wagon during November 2023 as a remembrance of the hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho people who were murdered on November, 29, 1864.
The Covered Wagon is a traditional western about a wagon train that travels from Kansas City to the Pacific Northwest. The travelers encounter weather and attacks by Native Americans protecting their homelands.
Director James Cruze worked with Ed Farlow of Lander, Wyoming who recruited future cowboy actor Tim McCoy to hire over 200 tribal members, mostly members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe from the Wind River Reservation in west central Wyoming
The film opened on the west coast at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles. The soundtrack for the 97 minute feature was performed by a small orchestra.
So far, The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Beyond Sand Creek – This is a multi-media project that includes a virtual reality movie, and a documentary about the Arapaho tribal efforts to regain lands lost during colonization from the city of Boulder.
Casting Directors Ed Farlow and Tim McCoy pose with some of the Northern Arapaho tribal members who were background actors in “The Covered Wagon.”
Beyond Sand Creek will screen before The Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux.
A new soundtrack will be performed by the Boulder Symphony sometime during November 2023 in remembrance of the 500 Arapaho and Cheyenne tribal members murdered and mutilated at the Sand Creek Massacre that happened in 1864.
It will air during February 2023 on Wyoming PBS and PBS Passport.The documentary was funded by the Boulder Arts Commission, the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, the Wyoming Humanities Council, and the Wyoming Arts Council, The Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).
Beyond Heart Mountain – This is a three-part multimedia project. It consists of a memoir by Alan O’Hashi about his life in Wyoming as a Baby Boomer growing up after World War II.
The Heart Mountain Relocation Center located in Northwest Wyoming was one of 10 internment camps scattered through the interior of the United States where 120,000 Japanese were relocated mostly from the West Coast following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
A picture book illustrated with over 100 images is also available. A documentary based on the memoir aired on PBS and is available on DVD. Alan also wrote a memoir about his life as a writer that culminated with Beyond Heart Mountain entitled:
True Stories of Mediocre Writer – How to write with confidence and imperfection. This book recounts the ships I boarded over my life that resulted in Beyond Heart Mountain, my first publishing contract.
It is also a self-help book of sorts that is about some of the pitfalls I encountered with self-doubt, perfection, floundering, and not finishing.
Becoming a starving artist wasn’t by choice. I was laid off from two jobs and decided to work for myself. Since 2006, I’ve made movies, written books, and haven’t looked back.
If I can get a traditional book published, or get a documentary to air on PBS, anyone can.
On the Trail: Electric Vehicle Anxiety and Advice — Author Alan O’Hashi scheduled a book tour after Beyond Heart Mountain was published. He drove 2,600 miles on the sparse and open roads of Wyoming between May and J
uly 2022 in his Nissan Leaf SL Plus electric vehicle.
Alan had a rude awakening when it came to recharging his EV in a state with very few charging stations. He kept a detailed real-time travelogue about his travels interspersed with his past experiences driving around Wyoming.
If the 2030 goal is to increase the number of EVs on the road by 30 percent the has to be an equally aggressive effort to design EVs at several price points so they are affordable to all, not just wealthy drivers. Along with affordable inventory, charging stations must be as convenient as gas stations.
New Deal Artists Public Art Legacy – A documentary about five New Deal era muralists, “Wyoming Art Matters: The New Deal Artist Public Art Legacy,”
“This is one of those documentary projects that kept getting more interesting the further I got into it,” Producer Alan O’Hashi said of the nearly three-year production. “It became a labor of love that took me cross country from California to New York.”
Each artist installed a mural project in five Wyoming communities – Kemmerer, Riverton, Powell, Greybull, and Worland (relocated to Casper, Wyoming). The story features stories about:
- Eugene Kingman
- Manuel Bromberg
- George Vandersluis
- Louise Emerson Ronnebeck
- Verona Burkhard.
O’Hashi interviewed relatives or individuals who knew the artists. “I wanted to get insight into the life of the artist, rather than just historical facts.”
The documentary highlight is an interview with Manuel Bromberg. At age 100, he continues to sculpt and paint from his studio in Woodstock, NY. “Mr. Bromberg is sharp as a tack and recalled neat details of the project he painted for Greybull, Wyoming,” O’Hashi said.
The project funded by the Wyoming Arts Council, the Wyoming Cultural Trust, and the Wyoming Humanities Council was completed in time to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the New Deal.