Honoring the Past, Changing the Future: Bringing Native American Voices into Dance Theory Courses

ABSTRACT

The inclusion of Native American perspectives adds an important voice in honoring the multiplicities of histories and cultures inherent in American society. And yet, teachers run the risk of committing unknown offenses if they are not familiar with the potential pitfalls that longstanding asymmetrical power relations between cultures can produce. This paper addresses the question: what are best practices that can help lead unfamiliar instructors in a responsible and beneficial inclusion of Native American dance? This paper offers a framework of four premises to consider when designing curricula in the dance theory classroom. It then offers a sample lesson that compares powwow dancing of Native Americans to the dancing of “Indian“ sports mascots. This example applies the four premises in a lesson where students learn about a diverse contemporary American dance practice, execute a dance analysis, and apply these findings to a larger context.

Notes

1. The terms Native American, First Nations, and Indian are used interchangeably in this article. Although Native American is preferred among some populations, many Native tribes and organizations identify with, use, and prefer the term Indian. This interchangeable use prevents the category of Indian from becoming a historical category, and clarifies the use of terms such as Pan-Indianism. Indigenous is used to denote any aboriginal group worldwide.

2. This lesson depends greatly on Brenda Farnell’s (2006) article from the SDHS 2006 conference. Special thanks for her work in this area.

3. For classroom materials, see American Indian Dance Theater (1996), Browner (2006), Deloria (1998), Farnell (2006), Rosenstein (1997), Into the Circle (2004), and Spindel (2002).