Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:23:18.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Performative Power in Native America: Powwow Dancing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Ann Axtmann
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Back in 1988, my father had passed away and for a short time I stopped dancing. I lost interest, I lost my heart, you know…' cause I used to dance on stage for my father…Recently,…I just started back dancing…the reason is 'cause…This is me. This is who I am. A dancer. A Fancy dancer at that. And this is where I felt my father was most proud of me. And even now, I still feel that he is most proud of me. Right now, he's with me when I dance and I dance for my father. I dance for him, for my pop, for Gray Fox.

—Calvin Burns (Cherokee) (Traveling the Distance)

Throughout the United States and Canada people go to Native American intertribal powwows. At powwows women, men, and children execute rhythmic movement, drumming, and song as they experience and express sensory stimuli. The aroma of sage incense pervades as Indians and non-Indians socialize, share fry bread, and sell, buy, or “window shop” at concession stands. Vendors display T-shirts, fur, turquoise, silver, and beaded jewelry as well as artwork, CDs, and Ecuadorian and Peruvian items. All participants enjoy storytelling, comedy skits, Indian rap and country music performances, and Mexican “Aztec” dance presentations alongside rituals such as giveaways, the Eagle ceremony, or the Veterans dance. These social and spiritual celebrations occur in increasing numbers across North America. In the tristate region of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut alone, from 1995 to 2001, the number of powwow events has tripled.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , Summer 2001 , pp. 7 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Allen, Paula Gunn. 1992 (1986). The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1975. How To Do Things With Words. 2nd ed. Edited by Urmson, O. and Sbisa, Marina. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axtmann, Ann. 2000. “Space, Time, and Popular Culture: Native American Indian Intertribal Powwows.” Mid-Atlantic Almanack: The Journal of the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association 9: 107–128.Google Scholar
Axtmann, Ann. 2000. (July). “Race, Persecution, and Persistence: Powwow Dancing.” Proceedings of the Dancing in the Millennium: An International Conference: 23–27. Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Axtmann, Ann. 1999. “Dance: Celebration and Resistance. The Native American Indian Intertribal Powwow Performance.” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Berstein, Diane Morris, and Don, Contreras. 1996. We Dance Because We Can. Marietta, GA: Longstreet Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Blackwolf and Jones, Gina. 1996. Earth Dance Drum: A Celebration of Life. Salt Lake City: Commune-a-key Pub.Google Scholar
Burton, Bryan. 1993. Moving Within the Circle: Contemporary Native American Music and Dance. Danbury, CT: World Music Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York & London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Compisi, Jack. 1975. “Powwow: A Study of Ethnic Boundary Maintenance.” Man in the Northeast 9: 34–46.Google Scholar
Connerton, Paul. 1989. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Certeau, Michel. 1988 (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
de Certeau, Michel. 1995 (1986). “The Politics of Silence: The Long March of the Indians.” In Heterologies: Discourse on the Other. Translated by Massumi, Brian, 225–33. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar
Deloria, Philip J. 1998. Playing Indian. Hartford: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1995 (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. 1990 (1978). New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Tamara B. 1991. “Urban Powwows: Form and Meaning.” UCLA Journal of Dance Ethnology 15: 78–90.Google Scholar
Green, Rayna. 1987. “The Tribe Called Wannabee: Playing Indian in America and Europe.” Folklore 99.1: 30–55.Google Scholar
Jaimes, M. Annette. 1992. “Federal Indian Identification Policy: A Usurpation of Indigenous Sovereignty in North America.” In The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance. Edited by Jaimes, M. Annette, 123–38. Boston: South End.Google Scholar
Jaimes, M. Annette. 1994. “American Racism: The Impact on American Indian Identity and Survival.” In Race. Edited by Gregory, Steven and Sanjek, Roger, 41–61. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Murie, James R. [1914[ 1916. “Pawnee Indian Societies.” In Societies of the Plains Indians. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, IX 4. Edited by Wissler, Clark, 543–644. New York: Ams.Google Scholar
Neihardt, John G. 1975. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of Oglala Sioux. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Parker, Andrew, and Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1995. “Introduction: Performativity and Performance.” In Performativity and Performance. Edited by Parker, and Sedgwick, . New York & London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Powers, William K. 1990. War Dance: Plains Indian Musical Performance. Tucson and London: Arizona University Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, Chris. 1992. Powwow Country. Helena, MT: American and World Geographic Publishing.Google Scholar
Sanchez, Victoria Eugenie. 1995. “‘As Long As We Dance, We Shall Know Who We Are’: A Study of Off-Reservation Traditional Intertribal Powwows in Central Ohio.” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1986. “What is Speech Act?” In Critical Theory Since 1965. Edited by Adams, Hazard and Searle, Leroy, 60–69. Tallahasse: Florida University Press.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Lisa. 1993. The Powwow: Questions and Answers. Bismarck: United Tribes Technical College.Google Scholar
Toelken, Barre. 1991. “Ethnic Selection and Intensification in the Native American Powwow.” In Creative Ethnicity: Symbols and Strategies of Contemporary Life. Edited by Stern, Stephen and Allan, John, 137–56. Logan: Utah University Press.Google Scholar
White, Julia C. 1994. The Powwow Trail. Park Lane, Long Beach, CA 90807.Google Scholar
Young, Gloria Alese. 1994. “Dance as Communication.” Native American Expressive Culture 9, nos. 3 and 4: 9–15. (Akwe: Kon Press and the National Museum of the American Indian, Cornell University.)Google Scholar
Fancy Dance. Volume I: Native American Dance Series. 1997. Full Circle Communications.Google Scholar
I'd Rather Be Powwowing. 1983. Ex. Prod. George P. Horse Capture for WNET. Dir. Larry Littlebird. Buffalo Bill Historical Center.Google Scholar
Into the Circle: An Introduction to Native American Powwows. 1992. Produced by Scott Swearingen and Sandy Rhoades. Videography by Scott Swearingen. Full Circle Communications.Google Scholar
Native American Men's & Women's Dance Styles. Volume I. 1994. Full Circle Communications.Google Scholar
Schemitzun '94. 1995. Ex. Prod. Wayne Reels. Superv. Prod. Michael Johnson. Mashantucket Pequot Nation.Google Scholar
Traveling the Distance: The Shinnecock Powwow. 1997. Dirs. Ziggy Attias and Ofer Cohen. Prod. Rabbit Foot. Ziggy Films.Google Scholar