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Quyana showcases Native dancing from across Alaska

By MIKE DUNHAM
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: October 31, 2004) The line for Quyana Alaska formed early on Wednesday night. An hour before showtime, it stretched along Fifth Avenue the length of Egan Center. Through the glass front, we could see white-shirted staff members huddling and conferring. "What are they doing?" some asked as the damp chill set in. "When are they going to let us in?"

Others took advantage of the wait to solicit admission. "Anyone have a spare ticket?" pleaded one young woman canvassing the line.

You can't get into Quyana using Tickets.com. The only way to buy a ticket is to be at Egan Center when they go on sale during the Alaska Federation of Natives convention and plop down your $15 right then and there. Or know someone who'll do it for you. One thing's for sure: Tickets for all three nights sell out almost as soon as their availability is announced.

"I have one," said a man. "$100." Then he grinned and gave it to her gratis.

"You really could have got $20 for it," a member of his party said after the delighted recipient departed to join her companions in the line ahead.

At about 6:40 p.m. the doors opened and the crowd flowed inside. The center seats, reserved for elders, filled first. Youngsters and families with small children took up the sides more slowly, many stopping by the refreshment stand or making that all-important pre-concert bathroom visit.

Attention went straight to the stage when the masters of ceremony stepped on at 7 p.m. Ossie Kairaiuak wore a malagg'aayak (fur-fronted hat with flaps), and Stephen Blanchett strutted in a whitish stole that he wrapped around his head, making him look a bit like Las Vegas animal trainer Siegfried Fischbacher in his bushiest period. Blanchett broke up the crowd repeatedly through the night as he appeared in other gag garb, at one point wearing an Aleut dress and a blond wig, at another emerging in the guise of a white-bearded old hippie.

Inupiat-style dancing opened the night, with mostly adult performers from Wainwright kicking things off. In contrast, the Gwich'in dance group from Fort Yukon consisted mostly of youngsters. Anchorage's King Island troupe wowed the fans with masked dances and notable athletics from the younger men. Their repertoire included snippets of the Wolf Dance, traditionally performed over a three-day celebration after a young man made his first significant kill of a game animal.

"We don't have three days," the spokeswoman said apologetically to the crowd, "so we'll just do the beginning."

Other locally based groups included the Anchorage Tlingit and Haida Dancers, who had most in the hall on their feet for the invitational, when members of the audience were asked to stand and join in when they heard their father's tribe shouted out -- starting with Tlingit clans, expanding to other Alaska Native groups, moving on to "Filipino!" and then "White man!" and, finally, "Everybody!" You want an inclusive state song? This is a good one -- and you can dance to it.

The Kicaput Dancers, also from Anchorage, debuted a new song by drummer Vernon John -- a song about swimming. Yup'ik country doesn't have many places where most of us would care to swim, and the head-shaking, shivering pantomime at the end of the verse drew a big round of laughter from the audience.

Three other Yup'ik-style groups were on the program. The most established was Bethel's high-energy Upallret troupe, which featured Peter Atchak "conducting" the ensemble with a long, feathered wand.

The Imarpigmiut Dancers from Togiak are relative newcomers to the statewide dance scene. Native dance disappeared in Togiak until students returning home from the University of Alaska Fairbanks about four years ago prevailed on their elders to remember the songs and teach them to the younger generation.

Consisting mostly of junior high and high school students, the troupe showed it had been taking practice seriously, moving in good unison and with plenty of spirit. A rendering of the Praise Song by Mary Huntington of Shishmaref -- a hymn danced in a stand-up style more Inupiaq than Yup'ik -- was among the highlights of the night for many in attendance.

Even newer than the Togiak dance group was the ensemble from Nunivak, where Native dance was revived only two years ago. The Nunivarmiut Dancers, who are Cup'ik, used the largest drums of any group, all vividly decorated, and performed in a style somewhat different from that of their mainland Yup'ik cousins. Female dancers, not just male drummers, sang loudly. They flanked the kneeling men instead of standing behind them. Men's and women's motions were often different to a greater extent than is seen among Yup'ik groups. At one point, the women broke into two choruses. One was briefly reminded of the antiphonal music composed in the 1500s by Giovanni Gabrieli to be sung by separate choirs stationed at opposite ends of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice.

That may seem like a stretch, but the variety and complexity, the meeting of expression and formality that are found in Alaska Native music -- perhaps Yup'ik yuraq above all -- can match that found in the world's most refined forms of art music: classical chamber music, jazz, Indian ragas.

The traditional groups wound up at 11 p.m., and the crowd had begun to thin. "I'd better take Dad home," said the woman next to me, a visitor from New Mexico with her 80-year-old father. The man had indeed started to nod despite being fascinated with the performance.

While they moved out of the row, I stayed to catch actors from Juneau's Perseverance Theatre, in Anchorage for a production of "Macbeth" in Tlingit dress. It was a stunning display of chant, costuming, mime, dance, Shakespeare and drumming, all very new and exciting, as they mixed excerpts from the play with other material. No one moved until MCs Blanchett and Kairaiuak finally announced the night was over. It was nearly midnight.

Crossing Fifth Avenue, I heard someone call my name. It was the New Mexico visitors and their Anchorage host. "You're still here?" I asked in surprise.

They'd made it as far as the door, I was told. "When the Perseverance group started, we couldn't make ourselves leave."
(Anchorage Daily News Assistant features editor Mike Dunham is a member of Miracle Drummers and Dancers and jumped up for every invitational at Quyana Alaska I)