Lights in the northern landscape: Alaska's tiny Bethel hosts a wondrous indigenous dance festival - Critical Essay

Dance Magazine, Nov, 2001 by Gigi Berardi

NEAR-BLIZZARD CONDITIONS ACROSS THE FROZEN TUNDRA OF WESTERN ALASKA NEARLY SHUT DOWN THE YUP'IK ESKIMO DANCE FESTIVAL, CAMAI, APRIL 6 THROUGH 8, 2001. THE DAY BEFORE, WIND GUSTS OF FIFTY MILES PER HOUR AND HEAVY, WET SNOW DELAYED FLIGHTS into Bethel, site of the annual festival. The town lies 400 air miles west of Anchorage and is accessible only by air, boat, or snow machine. Besides its highly changeable weather, Bethel is well known for having one of the largest concentrations of traditional people still practicing a subsistence lifestyle. Close to 500 dancers, drummers, and singers ranging in age from 2 to 92 perform at this remote regional center with its 5,000-plus residents. In addition to dancing, the festival also features storytelling, a fashion show, Native arts and crafts, a quilt show, and a potlatch that feeds hundreds of people with traditional fare: baked venison, caribou, roast moose, musk ox, beaver, rabbit soup, fish stews, ptarmigan, berries, aqutaq (Eskimo ice cream), pilot bread, and ayuq (Labrador tea), made from a commonly found bush. In the spirit of sharing, families in Bethel open both their homes and food caches for feasting during Camai. Even in this year's weather conditions, attendance was off only slightly. Almost 4,000 people attended three days of events in which dancing continued past midnight.

Watching the dancers perform at Camai, it is easy to think that Yup'ik Eskimo dancing has always enjoyed such practice and popularity. In reality, the survival of dance throughout western Alaska is a story of cultural resistance and resilience despite attempts by certain missionaries to suppress it since the late nineteenth century.

Dance is part of a broader cultural reawakening. Western Alaska has experienced a dramatic cultural renaissance in many forms, according to anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan, including oral history projects, multivillage dance festivals, bilingual school curricula, and political action. Elders--older Alaska Natives who are respected for their character and knowledge of traditional ways--talk about tradition as an avenue to maintaining cultural identity, especially given the problems associated with rapid culture change.

Camai commemorates and honors "living treasures," those who were responsible for the revival of dance and song in the villages (this year, Tununak Elders Mike and Susie Angaiak) as well as Elders who have passed on. For example, this year was dedicated to the late Nicholai Berlin and Alexie Paul of Nunapitchuk, who revived dance after a fifty-year hiatus in their village. In Bethel, the Charles family, among others, was instrumental in reviving dance.

As Yup'ik language specialist Marie Meade says, "In the past it was a big mistake to stop the dances--a lot of things died in this process. Restarting the dances is only one thing.... By learning the dances, you young people will have weight, so that nobody can brush you off the top of this earth. You will be the exciting ones because you have something of your own--your culture."

The first Camai was a small gathering of regional dance groups, organized in 1989 by Bethel resident Teresa John, following a successful dance festival held in the village of St. Mary's in 1982. In 1990, the Bethel Yugtarvik Museum of Yup'ik history and culture joined with the Bethel Council on the Arts (BCA) to create the annual, three-day-long Camai Dance Festival. More than 150 dancers and drummers, mainly from the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta but also from throughout Alaska, participated that first year.

BCA board member Linda Curda became festival coordinator. Over time, there has been more Alaska Native community involvement in selecting the theme, dedication, logo, living treasures nominees, and dance groups to be invited. Curda likens herself to a conductor, bringing together all the bits and pieces into a glorious and cohesive whole: "Camai is about the collective community.... People open their homes, their hearts, their steam baths, their meals. The whole town becomes a village.... We do that by bringing the best of both worlds together." Curda also thinks about the festival's long-term survival and is always on the lookout for someone to shadow her, to assist in landing grants, and eventually, to take over.

Camai's budget is about $80,000--the $7 admission has not been raised for nearly ten years--with one-half to two-thirds of the cost going for travel for the performing groups from all over Alaska and beyond. Each year Camai hosts eight Bethel groups, eight regional, two national, and two international groups. All are treated equally, dancing in the afternoon as well as in the prime evening spots. Devising a schedule that allows for equal exposure, regardless of the distance traveled and effort exerted by the individual groups, is a challenge. The Bethel Traditional Dancers opens the program each year, following a Yup'ik tradition that the host group be the first to welcome visitors. Other local groups that performed this year include Upallret and Ayaprun Elitnaurvik. Regional dancers came from dozens of other villages: Chefornak, Marshall, Napakiak, Nunapitchuk, and Scammon Bay, among others. Featured groups were Anchorage's Kicaput Singers and Dancers, the King Island Singers and Dancers, the Tikigaq Traditional Dancers from Point Hope, and the Apache White Mountain Spirit Crowndancers from Arizona. All received equal billing.