National Museum of the American Indian presents Circle of Dance, an exhibition opening Saturday, Oct. 6, featuring Native dance as a vibrant, meaningful and diverse form of cultural expression. This five-year exhibition, which features 10 social and ceremonial dances from throughout the Americas, will be on view at the museum through Oct. 8, 2017.
For well over 50 years in the United States and Canada—and for centuries in Latin America—church and “civilization” regulations discouraged and even outlawed many indigenous dances. Not until the second half of the 20th century were such prohibitions fully reversed. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, many Native communities continue to preserve their traditions involving dance.
“Circle of Dance” will interpret the traditions of social, ceremonial and spiritual dances highlighting the significance of each dance and the unique characteristics of its movements and music. Each dance will be showcased by a single mannequin dressed in appropriate regalia and posed in a distinctive dance position. An accompanying media piece will complement and enhance the mannequin displays. Presenting the range of dances featured in the exhibition this high-definition video will capture the variety of the different Native dance movement vocabularies, and the music that is integral to their performance.
The featured dances include the Yoreme Pajko’ora dance from the southern Sonora and northern Sinaloa states in Mexico in which the dancer wears strings of pebble-filled, dried giant silk moth-cocoon rattles covering their legs from their ankles to knees. The Hopi Butterfly Dance is danced in pairs by young people in northern Arizona to give thanks for rain. A girl’s or young woman’s ceremonial dress for the Butterfly Dance is composed of a traditional Hopi dress (a piece of woven black cloth fastened over the right shoulder, leaving the left shoulder bare and reaching to the knees); a woven belt, often dyed black, red and green; a brightly colored, lace-trimmed, cotton shawl; and anklets. The most striking components of a girl’s outfit, however, are her headdress, called a kopatsoki, and black hair bangs, which cover her eyes. The Tlingit ku.éex’, led by clan leaders along the Pacific Northwest Coast, dance wearing a headdress called a shakee.át. Eagle down, a sign of peace, is placed in the crown, and as the chief dances the eagle down spreads in the air and gently falls to the floor, blessing the ceremonial space.
For information, call (212) 514-3700 or visit www.americanindian.si.edu