| Neon streamers and eagle feathers hang from the dancers as they whirl around the ring. Dancing energetically, teenage boys touch the floor with short staffs while drumming fills the air and audience members bounce to the pounding rhythm.
Powwows are a social gathering, sometimes lasting days, oriented around singing, dancing and drumming. While they happen all year, powwows in Alberta pick up during the summer. Many offer cash prizes to the best performers, luring top talent to travel the powwow circuit across the continent.
"This is a full-time job for some of us," says Alex Wells, a 32-year-old dancer from Calgary, on the sidelines of an Aboriginal Awareness Week powwow at Mount Royal College. "Some of the older people say that our dancing is our buffalo today, it’s our way of providing."
Wells has been dancing since he was five years old and became a three-time world champion in hoop dancing. In this dance, a performer skillfully weaves large rings around their body, linking them to form shapes. Each region has its own style of hoop dance and travelling the powwow circuit has allowed him to see them. "The dance tells a story about the circle of life," he says. "You incorporate the different styles into it."
He’s also taken part in "iron man" endurance dances, where a fast beat keeps dancers moving until only one remains standing. "Your whole body goes numb, but you’re just doing it," he says with a smile.
Some powwows can last for days and attract thousands of dancers. The powwow circuit stretches from the Queen Charlotte Islands in northwestern British Columbia to Connecticut near the east coast, and from northern Manitoba down to California, with hundreds of individual events in between.
For Ellery Starlight, the circuit has provided a chance to make connections across the continent. "We have adopted relatives down in the Navajo Nation," he says. "One girl liked our name, so we had a ceremony. Everyone makes relatives."
Starlight has been dancing all his life, learning several styles of dance and drumming. He has a full-time job at home, so he doesn’t always head out on the powwow circuit anymore. When he does, he brings his kids. "We want youth to be familiar with what being indigenous means," he says. "There’s things we’re required to know."
Powwows deserve more recognition because of their cultural importance, he says. While rodeos can offer huge cash prizes to their best cowboys, he says the prizes at powwows aren’t as big. "We’ve always kept that tradition. Sometimes it’s hard to keep it going," he says. "They need that celebration. Just being there and being part of it."
In addition to dancing and drumming, Starlight sometimes serves as a ring director at powwows. Standing tall in the ring, he directs dancers to enter and shoos away children trying to run into the circle.
At powwows, dancers are grouped into categories based on age and dancing style. During large intertribal sequences, dozens or even hundreds of dancers fill the ring. At other times, when dancers compete in their categories, the director clears the ring and a few dancers take over.At one point in the powwow, the circle empties and Starlight gives the signal for a lone hoop dancer to enter. Jessica McMann, a Calgary teen, steps into the middle of the ring, laying hoops in a V-shape in front of her. As the drums start, she steps up to the first ring, manipulating it around her arms and legs. She picks up more rings and manoeuvres them onto her arms as she dances, then pulls them off to form a sphere.
"I’m always still learning," she says afterwards. "I love to dance." McMann avoids competing, but plans to go on the powwow circuit. The social aspect is one of the circuit’s draws. "I’m always meeting family I never knew I had," she says.
While some powwows happen indoors, most are open-air and can go ahead regardless of the weather. "There was one where it was totally pouring rain," McMann recalls. "The thunder was so loud it sounded like it was right there. It was amazing."
Partway through the powwow, the dancing is put briefly on hold and the ring opens up to a drumming competition. One by one, drummers step up and use a lone hand drum to accompany their singing. Peter Favel sings with a sharp alto voice, his song ringing out over the audience. Favel drums with Da Bad Boyz, a Calgary drum group. He started drumming as a kid and his whole family is involved with powwows. Seated around a large drum, his friends take a short break, leaning back in their chairs. "I grew up with a lot of these boys," he says. He joined the group as a teenager and he’s now teaching his young son to drum. "Ever since he could hold a drum, he’s been doing it."
Check out a powwow near you this summer
Iyinowak Contest Powwow
Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Alberta
Approximately 180 km northeast of Edmonton
June 28 to July 1
For more information: 780-726-3829 or 780-726-4020
Bearspaw/Chiniki First Nation powwow
Morley, Alberta
Directly west of Calgary
June 29 to July 1
For more information:
403-881-2665
Alexander Annual Traditional Powwow
Alexander Arbor Grounds at Alexander First Nation, Alberta
Approximately 60 km north of Edmonton, 17 km west of Morinville
June 29 to July 1
For more information:
780-939-5887
Ermineskin Cree Nation Annual Celebration
Hobbema, Alberta
230 km north of Calgary, near Highway 2
July 6 to 8
For more information:
780-585-3741
Onion Lake Powwow
Fifty km north of Lloydminster on the Saskatchewan side
July 20 to 21
For more information:
306-344-2525
Tsuu T’ina Powwow and Rodeo
Borders on southwest Calgary
July 25 to 28
For more information:
403-281-4455 |
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