‘Dances are stories’ — Native American Hoop Dancing comes to Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY — Red Butte Gardens hosted its first Intermountain Hoop Dance Competition Saturday, with dancers traveling from as far as Canada to share the cultural heritage of their tribes and win cash prizes.

Circles of men on each side of a large competition stage sat around large drums, singing out in a rhythmic cadence while striking the heads together.

Percussion rebounded off the back walls of the garden hillside. Burning sage colored the air. Dancers spun with an impossible number of thin hoops in their hands, which they manipulated, linked together and broke apart to form great wings and globes and tails.

Men in a drum circle sang while competitors danced during the inaugural Intermountain Hoop Dance Competition at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City, Saturday. (Photo: Collin Leonard, KSL.com)

“Our songs and dances are stories,” one of the event advisors, Terry Goedel, said. “It’s an eagle, and it represents us in our journey to life. They’re telling this story of their own personal journey.”

This is a story of the world of the people, where they came from and how they fit together.”

Saturday’s 31 competitors came from many different walks of life and levels of experience, representing just a handful of the over 570 Native American tribes across North America. Some traveled from Oklahoma, Illinois and Alberta, not to mention the Intermountain West.

Naakai Tsosie, has been dancing for 20 years and met his wife doing it. Now, working toward a doctorate degree in chemical engineering, his routine has become an expression of determination.

Read the full story at KSL.com

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