Drums Along the Hudson 2024 is a Native American powwow that evolved into a multicultural celebration of drum, song and dance. No matter where you or your family are from, every culture has a drum!
23rd Drums Along the Hudson 2025
Drums Along the Hudson Native American and Multicultural Celebration, is at Inwood Hill Park, in Inwood, Manhattan; on Sunday, June 1, 2025 from 11am – 6pm. FREE. 🇺🇸 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇲🇽 🇱🇰
22nd Drums Along the Hudson 2024
Drums Along the Hudson Native American and Multicultural Celebration, is at Inwood Hill Park, in Inwood, Manhattan; on Sunday, June 2, 2024 from 11am – 6pm. FREE.
Performers 2024
- Haudenosaunee Oneida Nation Dancers
- Kathak Ensemble and Friends 🇮🇳
- Dominican Arts Collective with Edwin Manuel Ferreras Madrigal 🇩🇴
- Mohawk Elder Tom Porer
- Louis Mofsie
- Thunderbird American Indian Dancers
- Kalpulli Huehuetlatolli Aztec Dancers and Drummers. Facebook @Huehuetlahtolli 🇲🇽
See the program at drumsalongthehudson.org
Honorees 2024
- Sandra Bookman is an award-winning Eyewitness News noon co-anchor.
- Jennifer Hoppa is NYC Parks’ Chief Strategy Officer.
Drums Along the Hudson
The Festival was founded in 2002 by Kamala Cesar Executive Director of Lotus Music and Dance, and Producer Carl Nelson. It started as a traditional Powwow now attracts over 8,000 people most years.
This celebration is held in Inwood Hill Park on the site of the old Lenape village, Manahatta’s First Nation. Of course, it’s the most beautiful spot on the island. The Harlem River didn’t go through back then. There was just a quiet bay on the Hudson River and Manahatta was connected to what is now The Bronx. In the park, it is sometimes hard to believe that you are in Manhattan.
The Indigenous Peoples of the Americas were a continuum from the Arctic north to Tierra del Fuego in the south. When you start to embrace world cultures, the surprising thing is how similar we are. A Native American powwow is the same thing as an Indigenous Taíno areíto, and Indigenous Amazon gatherings. Indigenous culture of the Americas, Mother Africa, and Asia are all very similar too, so expanding beyond Native American traditions make sense. We are all one people on Turtle Island.
Inwood Hills Park is Sacred Ground
Inwood Hills Park is the site of the precolonial Native American Lenape village. Of course, they chose the most beautiful place on the island for their village. It’s hard to believe you are in Manhattan, now one of the world’s most built up places.
The Lenape people called the place “Shorakapok” (edge of the water). In their time, Spuyten Duyvil Creek did not go through to the Harlem River. It was just a small bay and wetlands.
Broadway was the Lenape Trail to the trading post at the southern tip of Manhattan where the National Museum of the American Indian is now. That is why it runs diagonally. The trail was made long before the Europeans came and made the Manhattan street grid.
So Inwood Hills Park is sacred ground.
The Drum is Universal
Every culture in the world plays the drum. After voice, the drum was probably the first human instrument.
Colonizers feared the drum because it could be used to communicate across hundreds of miles, faster than a telegraph. They used guns to silence our drums. But the people know that the call of the drum is a call to gather together in peace. That is the meaning of the Malian West African word for drum “Djembe.” Studying Indigenous drum traditions, one can’t help but notice how similar drum traditions are – all around the world and across time.