The troupe of dancers and musicians have performed around the globe, including at baseball stadiums in Japan, festivals in Finland and Europe and at Cultural Olympiad at Mount Olympus in Greece. This is the first time that the company--which is celebrating its 30th anniversary--has performed in Southern California.
The show, "Cokata Upo (Come to Center)," will focus on the birth, death and rebirth of the Lakota Sioux nation and the creation story. There will be war, vision, social, spirit and animal spirit dances for a total of 15 selections.
"We do those dances within the framework of the creation story, so there is narration and there are dances and theatrical sections as well," Lakota Sioux Dance Theatre artistic director Henry Smith said.
The performers range in from age from 19-59. All of them are champion powwow dancers from the Plains, Smith said.
For more on the subject, see Native Plays and Other Stage Shows.
2 comments:
The Nit Picky "Lakota Sioux" Guy says:
Although I applaud what this dance group does in terms of broadening cultural awareness - I always cringe at the use of "Lakota Sioux" as this is a misnomer of serious proportions.
To me (Lakota), there is only Lakota, Dakota and Nakota as used by ourselves to truly denote the three main divisions of our people and our language (dialects).
"Lakota Sioux" is tantamount to saying "United States Americans" or more sarcastically, "American Yanks."
Several tribes have the word "Sioux" in their names, of course.
If a US citizen, a Canadian, a Mexican, a Guatemalan, a Cuban, a Brazilian, and an Argentine all called themselves American (i.e., a resident of the Americas), I could see a legitimate need for the phrase "United States American."
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