[ Foreign ]
>> So I said hello, how are you my relatives?
I'm Anishinaabe from Red Lake, Minnesota,
but I currently live in Minneapolis.
I -- or my English name is Kayla,
and my Anishinaabe name is Amec [phonetic],
and I'm very happy to be here.
I am a junior at Dartmouth College,
I'm studying Native American studies and linguistics,
with a focus on language revitalization,
specifically indigenous language revitalization.
I've been dancing ever since I could walk.
I literally have a picture in my room --
it's my most prized possession -- of me, my mom, my grandma,
and my great-grandmother all standing together.
And I'm just like a little girl in a jingle dress.
So the dance is about healing,
and it's about protecting your -- your strength, your ability,
and it also represents the power that women have,
and the strength that they have.
When you dance, you're supposed to dance very gracefully
and light on your feet, with like very strong posture,
and you use a strong but delicate force.
And not that women are delicate, but in like a beautiful way.
It's -- it's not to say that they have a different role
or place in Anishinaabe lifestyle,
it's just that they are so powerful,
and in their power they are beautiful.
The dance has evolved, like I said,
and it's become more contemporary,
and spread to other tribes.
And now dresses are very colorful, and you'll see lots
of designs on them, and you'll see a lot of footwork --
a lot of different crazy footwork, cool moves.
The protocol for dancing traditional is
that you can't have more than one foot leave the ground
at a time, and you have to dance in kind of like a --
kind of like a snake-like pattern going back and forth,
and you slide your feet more,
whereas dancing contemporary it's a lot of, you know, moves,
and now we have fans, and you can wear feathers in your hair
which was reserved for the men back in the day.
Everything that I wear, I've made,
and I've put a lot of time into it.
This dress that I actually just finished
for this year's Dartmouth Pow-Wow was a dress I've been
meaning to make for a long time.
My -- or my namesake -- the person who gave me my name,
he told me before I left for Dartmouth that I needed
to make a green -- a light green metallic colored dress,
with Ojibwa floral designs on it.
And he said that I wouldn't know --
or I would know what color it was when I saw it in the store.
And so I've been looking, I've been trying to keep my eye out.
But it was only recently through --
almost three years later that I actually found the right color.
It's a lot different than most of the dresses I've made.
I try to -- well and this --
this one here you can see it's contemporary,
it's very colorful.
And this one actually over here, it has the --
the designs of a traditional dress,
but the colors are more contemporary.
There are supposed to be 365 jingles
on the dress, which this one does.
A lot of them, the old ones used
to have jingles on the sleeves too.
It's really cool looking back at all the old pictures of like --
even in -- not that long ago, like the 60s and 70s,
people still wore a lot more traditional dresses.
And when I came to the Hood [phonetic] Museum and asked
if I could see if -- or first I asked
if they even had any Ojibwa beadwork or art,
and in my head I was kind of doubting that they would,
just because I -- I wasn't quite sure
at that moment what classified Ojibwa art.
To me, these are things I grew up with,
and that have been a part of my life since I can remember,
and they were just something that you do, not something
that oh I'm going to go paint a picture today, you know,
something that's clearly defined as art.
This is something to me that was just a part of my life.
And when she pulled open the drawer, there's about --
can't even remember, like maybe five or six,
maybe a couple more, couple less beautifully beaded Ojibwa styled
bags, my mouth just dropped.
And like in that moment I realized that everything we do
and everything that we are teaching girls here
through the Native Dancing Society and dancing
and making their own regalia
that is art, and it is beautiful.
And it's something that's so closely a part of my identity,
so it's so much a part of me that the dance itself is art.
So it's really -- it's really cool 'cause I --
this is a realization I've just recently had.
And I admire all of the work that other people do.
This painting is actually --
I looked at it, and it was so bright and fun, you know,
like I'm smiling in this picture, and I'm like goofing
around and having a good time.
But to me that is what dancing it, it's --
it's something that you have fun doing.
And it was really interesting looking at the other pieces
in this collection, because a lot
of the other ones are more serious, and they're very --
they're very much like here I am, like I'm beautiful
and strong, like what I was saying,
you know, the dance represents.
But also like here I'm -- I'm like happy, I'm laughing,
I'm having a good time.
Like to me this is what dancing is for me,
and this is what making all this regalia is for me.
It's -- it's fun, it's -- but it's also beautiful and strong
at the same time, if that's possible, you know?
It's just like those other pictures I thought it was really
cool 'cause they really embody what those dances represent,
and what it means to be a Native person.
But -- but here I feel like -- or for this one,
I felt it was more about like how I see the dance,
not how others view the dance.
And so I was really excited when I saw it.
I was given a poem when I was younger, from a cousin,
I believe, about dancing.
And I don't -- I can't remember it fully,
but I'll say a little bit of what I do remember from it,
because I think it really -- or like parts of it, 'cause it --
it really embodies too like how I've grown
up appreciating the dance.
And I always -- I'm the --
one of the co-leaders for the Native Dancing Society,
and I always share this poem with them
within the first couple weeks of dancing, so that they know
where I'm coming from about the dance,
and also it leaves them room for interpretation.
Because it is something that's supposed to be fun,
but it's also something that should be respected,
because it's a gift to us.
So it goes something like hear me dance
for Mother Earth [inaudible] prayer, I dance for those
who cannot dance to let them know I care.
See me move, I give you this, accept my sacred gift,
and there's another part, and it goes I dance for those
who feelings hurt yet still refuse to cry.
I dance for those -- I dance for those whose -- wait, wait, wait,
I know, this is my favorite line.
I dance for those whose feelings hurt yet still refuse to cry,
I dance for those who are struggling,
help lift their heads up high.
I dance for my relatives, and it goes on and on and on and on.
But anyways, like those are -- those like really made me think
about what dancing, and like making beadwork is,
and like everything I do and sharing with others what I know,
and teaching other people how to dance, it's, you know,
it's not just us dancing and our beadwork, and our dress
and the songs that go along with them.
They are beautiful and everything, but they are gifts
to us, and they're gifts to us for a reason,
because through it we help others.
And whether it be, you know, giving a gift
of beadwork is really honorable to somebody, or teaching someone
to dance, and, you know, seeing how they progress
and how they interpret it, it's all a gift.