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

Dance Magazine, Nov, 2001 by Gigi Berardi

Past themes for Camai have included Kassiyuq ("An Old-Time Celebration") and Mengyaram Anaanga ("The Song Begins With You"). For Camai 2001 it was Piliyat ("Gathering of the Dancers").

Dance groups practice for months. Practice sessions offer contemporary socializing. Amira Martz, a Bethel teenager, dances with her family and friends in Upallret. This is her second year with the group. She says, "Young people are interested in this because it's fun and you get to travel to places, it's a way to learn about the culture, and people enjoy watching it."

But practice sessions are also part of how novice dancers learn traditional ways. Elders share the songs and dances that they know and guide the younger dancers. The instruction carries with it counseling on traditional morals and on how one should act.

DANCERS--OR THEIR FAMILIES OR FRIENDS--PREPARE elaborate dance regalia. "Early on, groups used to just come and dance," says Curda. "These days, they prepare. People wear regalia rather than street clothes." Dance regalia includes fancy fur or cotton qasperet (a parka-style pullover), cotton-print dress, or solid-color shirt with pants; piluquut (skin boots with leather soles); women's fans made of coiled dried grass or sealskin discs with a fringe of white caribou or reindeer hair; men's fans made of bent wood hoops into which feathers have been stuck; gloves to show respect for the spirits; headdresses trimmed with beads and the fur of beaver, wolf, wolverine, or otter.

"There also is a return of dance sticks," Curda adds, "whiplike sticks with feathers at the end that imitate flying birds. And masks, which may be the theme of Camai next year, also are surfacing."

A week before the festival, the Upallret Dancers practiced in Bethel. The group's name means "those who moved from one place to another," underlining the importance of a subsistence lifestyle to cultural survival.

In rehearsal, the group's leader, Myron Naneng, calls out in Yup'ik and strikes the rim of the drum. Fourteen dancers in two lines gesture and move in place. As the beat gets louder and the tempo faster, the dancers respond.

Anna Gaudot, a student visiting from France, practices with the group. "For me, dancing is prayer," says Gaudot, who was classically trained in Paris. "When I dance with Upallret, I feel like all I read in a book about old-time dancing is coming alive, the way they used to dance. When I know enough of the gestures, I forget I'm white, I just dance."

Traditional dance originally was performed in the confined space of the qasgiq (the ceremonial house in the village center), and thus often was done with the feet steady in place and movement mostly above the waist. These days dance is a major theatrical event, with stage lighting and a full technical crew. The Camai audience response to the group on opening night left no doubt that people enjoyed it.

The Camai stage in the school gym was backed with six large panels decorated with masks and sculptures. The master of ceremonies for opening night was Peter Atchak, who also dances with Upallret. Bleachers lined the walls and chairs were set directly in front of the stage for Elders. Camai crowds are unfailingly ardent. Elders sit and watch for hours. Children squirm in their seats and dance in front of the main stage on foam pads.