Native American Hoop Dance is one of the individual dances, and it is performed as a show dance in many tribes. It features a solo dancer dancing with a dozen or more hoops and using them to form a variety of both static and dynamic shapes (poses and moves). Most of the hoop dances in tribes across North America belong to modern hoop dance, which was invented in 1930.
Like other native dances, hoop dance is not acrobatic, but restrained. The dancer usually takes small steps when performing the dance. Hoop dance, an individual dance, is a "show dance" in some tribes. They will move either clockwise or counterclockwise as determined by their cosmology and worldview. [1] Native American Hoop dance usually focuses on very rapid moves, but sometimes speed and creativeness balance the scoring between Hoop dancers who use only four hoops but dance to extremely fast songs, versus dancers with 20 or more hoops who danced to a slower drumbeat. [2] Every dance is as individual as the person who choreographs it. [3] Some dancers mimic animals such as birds or working of hunting, fishing, planting and harvesting. [4] In elaborate sequences of moves, the hoops are made to interlock, and in such a way they can be extended from the body of the dancer to form appendages such as wings and tails.
There are usually 28 hoops used in the hoop dance, and they symbolize "a prayer that the promised renewal of the collective human spirit will accelerate and that we will all find our place in one great hoop made up of many hoops. [5] " The hoops symbolizes the "never-ending cycle of life," having no beginning and no end. [6] The dancers usually make their own hoops. Modern hoops are made from an array of materials while traditional wood hoops are made of willow. More popular now are reed and plastic hose hoops decorated with tape and paint, according to the dancer's preference. [7] Today, many contemporary hoop dancers will color their hoops in four colors to represent the four directions.
According to writer Basil H. Johnston in Anishinaabe culture, a Manitou named Pukawiss, brother of Nanabozho, and born to live amongst the people, created the hoop dance. [8] Unlike the other boys, Pukawiss did not show an interest in running, swimming or hunting. He only wanted to watch the animals. His fascination with things drove his father's interest away from him towards his brother Maudjee-kawiss, therefore, leading to everyone calling him Pukawiss: the disowned or unwanted. Pukawiss learned so much about life in the movements of eagles, bears, snakes that taking their life would have been wrong. The animals had much to teach human beings about values and relationship like loyalty, kindness and friendship. Pukawiss taught his village about the animals by spinning like an eagle in flight or hopping through grass like rabbits or bouncing like a baby deer. He became a dancer. So many villages wanted him to teach them about the ways of the animals that he had to give up his home and became a permanent visitor. Many women wanted him to settle with them in their village but he preferred to keep moving.
Pukawiss and his brother Cheeby-aub-oozoo added drums and flute to the dance. Later, Pukawiss added the stories of humankind to his performances. He invented the hoop dance to help him with this goal. The dancer became a counselor with the hoops representing a circle that returns each problem back to the responsibility of its creator. According to Basil Johnston, "the hoop is also emblematic of the way things are, in that mischief breeds mischief that eventually returns to haunt and plague the inventor". [9] Eventually many became jealous of Pukawiss - his fancy dress, and his skill with the hoops so they copied him. Like his father, his brother Maudjee-kawiss did not understand his artistic ways and sought to scold him. Pukawiss often provoked his audience by teasing them. As an older brother, he teased his other brothers perhaps once too often. Insulted by a Pukawiss prank involving the theft of his prize pigeons, Nanabozho angrily razed the mountain under which Pukawiss had been hiding camouflaged as a snake. Pukawiss wasn't killed but now he had a new job: to taunt those who are too proud. The Anishinaabe believe that we see him each time the wind teases the leaves and soil to dance.
The hoop dance people see today is categorized as modern hoop dance. Although many tribes lay claim to the Hoop Dance, it wasn't until the 1930s that a young man named Tony White Cloud, Jemez Pueblo, began using multiple hoops in a stylized version and became known as "founder of the modern Hoop Dance." [10] Tony White Cloud used five hoops made of willow wood bent to form a circle. These hoops were approximately 24 inches in diameter, a size large enough to get his body through. This became the foundation of modern hoop dance. [10] The modern dance with 22-28 hoops evolved when the dancers began using reed from Vietnam instead of the dance with 7 to 10 heavy willow hoops.
The White Mountain Apache is one of the few Native American tribes that was not forced to leave its territory and live on a reservation when faced with the Westward expansion of the US government. They kept on living on their territory they had settled in Athabaskan migration in East Arizona. For the most part, White Mountain Apache dance and religious ceremonies had always been oriented toward healing. [11] The modern medicine has taken away some of the healing ritual and traditional curing ceremonies, however, dancing still retains its strong spiritual significance. Hoop dance is one of the most important healing dances in the White Mountain Apache. In the past, the Hoop Dance was performed during lightning ceremonies, to cure people who had been struck by lightning or who had inadvertently used a piece of lightning-struck wood for some purpose. [12] In a 1936 record, a sick person was seated on a blanket in the middle of a dance gourd facing east. One boy and one girl stood on the east, south, west and north side of him, holding crosses and hoops. The youngsters danced to the patient while the medicine man started to sing. The boy then placed the hoops over the patient’s head and the girls holding the crosses. Then the boys and girls danced back to their original position. The dance was then repeated as the medicine man sang. [13]
Native American Hoop Dance has been formally recognized as a cultural heritage, embodied in both documentary films and as a living tradition in formal competition. The most popular competition occurs annually at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Up to 80 dancers have participated in any given year, [14] and the competitions have drawn as many as 10,000 spectators.
The first World Hoop Dance Competition was held at the New Mexico State Fair in 1991. The first World Champion Hoop Dancer was Eddie Swimmer, a Cherokee from Cherokee, North Carolina. The venue was moved to the Heard Museum in Arizona for the second event and the first adult winner of what was to become the permanent venue was Quentin Pipestem of the Tsuu T'ina Nation in Alberta, Canada. [15] The hoop dance is part of the pan-Indian movement and as such has evolved over the years by becoming faster and incorporating many influences from outside traditional culture such as the use of moves from hip hop dance as well as the widespread use of industrial piping to construct hoops that were originally made from reeds or willow branches. Hoop dance has gained a strong following internationally as an increasing number of dancers tour the world. Nakota La Rance, already a six-time World Championship winner at 23, performed for the 2010-11 season of Totem by Cirque du Soleil.
Although originally a male-only dance form, in recent years women have become active participants in the hoop dance and in hoop dance competitions. In 1994, Jackie Bird (Mandan, Hidatsa and Santee Sioux, from South Dakota) became the first woman to compete in the Hoop Dance World Championships. [15] In 1997, Ginger Sykes (Navajo, from Arizona) became the first woman to win the Hoop Dance World Championships by winning the Teen Division. [16] For performing at Mount Rushmore, [17] Jasmine Pickner (Lakota) has been featured in the PBS documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009). In 2000, Lisa Odjig (Odawa and Anishnaabe, from Ontario, Canada) became the first female adult Hoop Dance world champion. [15]
Hoop dance is usually called the "entertaining dance" in the Native American tribes. These kinds of dramatic dances are staples of Indigenous performances for non-Indigenous audiences, but are rare at powwows. [18] Because the complexity of hoop dance, it takes years of practice to master. [19] The inventor of modern hoop dance, Tony White Cloud, popularized it to America by performing it in the movie Valley of the Sun in 1942. During World War II, White Cloud traveled with Gene Autry across America and Europe promoting war bonds to fund the war effort by performing the Hoop Dance. He later danced in Autry’s movie, Apache Country, in 1952. [20] Kevin Locke is another famous Native American Hoop dancer. His dance awed spectators as it created visual images of the seasons, of the moon and sun, flowers, butterflies and way of life. [21]
A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders in their particular cultures.
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas comprise numerous different cultures. Each has its own mythologies, many of which share certain themes across cultural boundaries. In North American mythologies, common themes include a close relation to nature and animals as well as belief in a Great Spirit that is conceived of in various ways.
Kiowa or Ka'igwa people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
The Apache are several Southern Athabaskan language–speaking peoples of the Southwest and the Southern Plains. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan homelands in the north into the Southwest between 1000 and 1500 CE.
Indigenous music of North America, which includes American Indian music or Native American music, is the music that is used, created or performed by Indigenous peoples of North America, including Native Americans in the United States and Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Mexico, and other North American countries—especially traditional tribal music, such as Pueblo music and Inuit music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-Indianism and intertribal genres as well as distinct Native American subgenres of popular music including: rock, blues, hip hop, classical, film music, and reggae, as well as unique popular styles like chicken scratch and New Mexico music.
Edward Sherriff Curtis was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis traveled the United States to document and record the dwindling ways of life of various native tribes through photographs and audio recordings.
Ute are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado.
ICT is a daily digital news platform that covers the Indigenous world, including American Indians, Alaska Natives and First Nations.
Kevin Edward Locke was of Lakota descent of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Anishinaabe of White Earth. He was a preeminent player of the Native American flute, a traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist and educator. He was best-known for his hoop dance, The Hoop of Life.
Allan Capron Houser or Haozous was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter, and book illustrator born in Oklahoma. He was one of the most renowned Native American painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.
The Yavapai are a Native American tribe in Arizona. Historically, the Yavapai – literally “people of the sun” – were divided into four geographical bands who identified as separate, independent peoples: the Ɖulv G’paaya, or Western Yavapai; the Yaavpe', or Northwestern Yavapai; the Gwev G’paaya, or Southeastern Yavapai; and the Wiipukpaa, or Northeastern Yavapai – Verde Valley Yavapai.
Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the Native Americans in the United States. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the forms of oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles.
The visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes Central America and Greenland. The Siberian Yupiit, who have great cultural overlap with Native Alaskan Yupiit, are also included.
Earnest Spybuck was an Absentee Shawnee Native American artist, who was born on the land allotted the Shawnee Indians in Indian Territory and what was to later become Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, near the town of Tecumseh. M. R. Harrington, an archaeologist/anthropologist, was touring the area documenting Native Americans, their history, culture and living habits. Interested in the religious ceremonies of the Shawnee which included the use of peyote, Harrington had ventured to the Shawnee Tribal lands. There he learned of Earnest Spybuck's artistic work and encouraged Spybuck in his endeavors. While Spybuck's work was obviously art, Harrington saw that he was illustrating detailed scenes of ceremonies, games, and social gatherings which could be used to illustrate many anthropological publications. Spybuck's work was received positively by both Native American and non-native artistic communities. Many of his works are now held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremony, to make a ceremonial commitment, or to seal a covenant or treaty. The pipe ceremony may be a component of a larger ceremony, or held as a sacred ceremony in and of itself. Indigenous peoples of the Americas who use ceremonial pipes have names for them in each culture's Indigenous language. Not all cultures have pipe traditions, and there is no single word for all ceremonial pipes across the hundreds of diverse Native American languages.
The grass dance or Omaha dance is a style of modern Native American men's pow wow dancing originating in the warrior societies on the Northern Great Plains. Unlike most forms of pow wow dancing, the grass dance regalia generally has no feathers besides the occasional roach feather. The regalia consists of brightly colored fringe made of either yarn, broadcloth, or ribbon.
Zoë Marieh Urness is a photographer of Alaskan Tlingit and Cherokee Native American heritage.
The World Championship Hoop Dance Contest is an annual American Indian and Canadian First Nations hoop dancing competition held at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
The Center of the American Indian (CAI) was an intertribal, Native American-led museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was housed in the second floor of the Kirkpatrick Center.
Joyce Lee "Doc" Tate Nevaquaya was a Comanche flute player and painter from Apache, Oklahoma. He is known for his contribution to the Native American flute music. His efforts in learning how to make Comanche flutes and play as well as compose contemporary Comanche flute music is considered to have saved the declining art from being lost completely. However, he said he considered himself a painter first, and painting was his primary art throughout his life.
Media related to Native American hoop dance at Wikimedia Commons
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
