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Celebrating Indigenous Dancers Past & Present

A Look at the Contributions of Indigenous Performers Nationwide

By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor

Photo of Indigenous Enterprise performers Kenneth Shirley and Dominic Pablo at Jacob’s Pillow in August 2022. Photo by Danica Paulos.

Many people in western culture generally feel comfortable with a binary kind of thinking because it's a way of processing information that we’ve grown up with. Things are either black or white, day or night, right or wrong. But when we make binary statements about people and art, we can create a rather limiting perspective for ourselves. I’ve found that such generalizations are often made about certain genres of dance or dance unique to specific cultural communities or regions. 

For example, many are quick to assume that indigenous dancers and dance within indigenous communities must look a certain way. However, within indigenous communities across the globe, dance has played a variety of roles, including making cross-cultural connections in the case of “The Five Moons,” as well as telling stories, healing from trauma, and exercising imagination. Let’s take a look at just a few of the many talented former and active indigenous dancers contributing to the rich dance landscape across the country.

“The Five Moons”

Myra Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin, Maria Tallchief, and Marjorie Tallchief, otherwise known as “The Five Moons,” are five Native American ballerinas from the U.S. state of Oklahoma known for achieving international recognition in ballet during the twentieth century.

“Of course, my parents were not about to let ballet take me away from my Indian dancing,” says Chouteau in American Indian Ballerinas. After touring globally with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Chouteau, a Shawnee-Cherokee, returned to Oklahoma and helped found the dance program at the University of Oklahoma in the early 1960s and the Oklahoma City Civic Ballet. On the other hand, Hightower, of the Choctaw Nation, found great success abroad, particularly in France where she earned the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, a high marker of civil distinction in France, in 1975. Nonetheless, some jokingly argue that Hightower’s greatest accomplishment was famously learning the lead for Giselle in less than five hours!

The Five Moons. From left: Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Yvonne Chouteau. Photo courtesy the University of Oklahoma School of Dance.

Among Larkin’s accomplishments, one particularly notable is helping found the renowned Tulsa Ballet. Larkin, an Eastern Shawnee-Peoria, was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1979. A descendant of a Russian mother and a Native American father, Larkin famously said that ballet gave her the freedom to express all parts of her identity.

Marjorie Tallchief, of the Osage Nation, performed with the Paris Opéra Ballet from 1957 to 1962, as well as the Chicago Opera Ballet, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, and many other large-scale companies. Her older sister Maria Tallchief was the first American dancer to achieve the title of “prima ballerina.” When George Balanchine co-founded what would become New York City Ballet in 1946, she was the company’s first major star. Tallchief showcased her talents across the globe, becoming the first American to perform in Moscow, Russia’s Bolshoi Theater.

“These are American Indian people that have made this impact on ballet,” says Russ Tall Chief, a relative of Marjorie and Maria, and a co-planner of the 2021 Five Moons Dance Festival at the University of Oklahoma. “And that they consider themselves American Indian before they consider themselves ballerinas, I think that’s important. That is part of their vocabulary as dancers. They bring that history of American Indian culture to their dance, and to their interpretation of the way that they see ballet.”

“The Five Moons” overcame preconceived, limiting notions of what a ballerina should look like, particularly during a time when American ballet was viewed as inferior to European ballet. Writer Meryl Cates points out that these women not only grappled with finding their place in the culture of their companies as Oklahomans but as Native women in a white-dominated field. These women have come to represent much of what people think of when they envision successful indigenous dancers of the twentieth century. But the story has certainly not stopped with them. Today, and for thousands of years before today, indigenous dancers have been using movement as a way to tell stories, heal, connect with their own culture and the world around them, and much more.

Dancing Earth

Dancing Earth is a company striving to create contemporary dance and related arts through global-Indigenous and intercultural relationships. The company is based in Ogaa Po Ogeh and Ohlone occupied territory, otherwise known as Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Francisco, California. It specifically centers its mission on ecological and cultural diversity for creativity, health, and wellness. Founding Artistic Director Rulan Tangen descends, in part, from the Kampampangan people of Luzon in the Philippines. A cancer survivor and recipient of Kennedy Center’s 2018-19 Citizen Artist fellowship, her work interprets dance as a functional ritual for transformation and healing, using movement to foster a connection with all life forms on Earth.

Elise Beers of Earth Works Dance

Earth Works Dance

Formerly based in occupied Duwamish territory, otherwise known as Seattle, WA, Earth Works Dance is a nomadic dance company focused on earth healing and land acknowledgment. Using dance as a means to help heal the “body, spirit, emotion, and mind” is a driver of the company’s mission. “[Art] is a spiritual and emotional provider that other people need to see the value in and then support…so their communities can grow and thrive, and in a sense, heal, mourn, and celebrate,” says Earth Works Dance founder and artist Elise Beers. Click here to read more about Elise’s work with the company.

Indigenous Enterprise

Indigenous Enterprise centers its art on what it refers to as “the three Ps”: Preservation, Performance, and Progression. Through its teaching efforts, the company strives to help preserve a strong Native American identity while welcoming many different kinds of performances and continuing to “progress” amid cultural and global changes. The dance group has been featured at Lincoln Center’s Summer For the City, Jacob’s Pillow, and lauded in Dance Magazine for their imaginative fusion of hip hop and Native American dance on season four of World of Dance.

The Jingle Dress Project

The idea of the Jingle Dress Project came to Navajo photographer Eugene Tapahe in a dream. Amid one of the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eugene dreamt of jingle dress dancers appearing as he sat, watching bison graze. Seeing the dancers perform the traditional Ojibwe healing dance gave Tapahe a sense of peace, a feeling he knew the world was craving during such a grave global crisis. Jingle dresses are traditionally adorned with beadwork, ribbon work, as well as triangular metal cones around the skirt that shake and create a distinctive sound with each movement. The Jingle Dress Project has traveled across the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to help uplift communities. “The jingle dress is really important for Native people, and the purposes of healing,” says Eugene, illustrating yet another way that dance can be used to heal in and out of indigenous communities.

While this article is certainly not exhaustive of all the Native American dancers creating art across the United States, it provides a peak into some of the exciting, multifaceted artists contributing to a long-standing, vibrant dance landscape. To explore some of these artists in greater depth, click the links below!

 
 

Resources:

DWC Staff, Madison Huizinga, Artist Interviews, Social Justice and Dance, Adult Dance, Continuing Education, Professional DanceGuest Userdancewear center rentonnative american, indigenous people, dancing earth