Future planning with a traditional twist
admin - March 12th, 2008Most people who attended high school remember the fundraising events with all the good concession food, raffles, cake walks and entertainment.
Add some traditional Native American dancing and music and the result is the Kinlani Senior Class “Contest Pow-Wow 2008.”
The event helped fundraise for the students at the Kinlani Dormitory, which houses Native American students attending Flagstaff High School. This annual event is organized by the Kinlani Pow-Wow committee and is hosted at Flagstaff High School. It is a fundraiser for the senior class trip.
“Donations are coming from family and staff. The staff donates a lot of time [for this event],” said Melinda Harrison, an employee at Kinlani Dorms.
Staff members, seniors, parents and volunteers have been working diligently for the past month to prepare such an event, trying to organize dancers, donations and food.
“We are having a senior class trip to California…whatever money they make is going to go toward the trip,” said Mary Ann Poyer, senior sponsor for the boys.
“(The senior class is going) to the Los Angeles area. They are going to Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags, Universal Studios and attending a medieval dinner,” Harrison said. “On the way back we are going to go around to Las Vegas and visit the Stratosphere.”
The event included a dance contest with many categories of traditional Native American dances. Categories were jangle, grass, traditional, men’s traditional, women’s traditional and men’s “fancy.”
The contest winners in each category received a cash reward.
“There (was) a cake walk, raffling, concessions, split the pot, door prizes, and the dance contest with men’s and ladies’ fancy dance and men’s grass dance,” Poyer said.
Fancy dancing is a fast-paced dance that involves colorful dress with feathers, fluff and anything else they can fit to make it as elaborate as possible.
Grass dancing is a traditional dance that began when people needed to flatten the grass before a pow-wow. The style of the dance is fluid, the costumes have a lot of fringe and the dancer tries to move the fringe in as many directions as possible.
“The Gourd Dancers start out the ceremony; they are veterans,” Poyer said.
Gourd Dancing precedes the Grand Entry, where traditional Gourd Dancers dance along to the sounds of drums; it is a very simple dance, but symbolic and serene.
“The Gourd Dancers are followed by the Grand Entry and the Anthem with the Color Guard,” said Flagstaff High School senior Leon Begay, who attended the event the previous year.
The Grand Entry dance brings in all the dancers. The veteran color guard leads the dance followed by the Head Man and Head Lady, who represent role models, and the dancers. The procession ends in a circle to listen to the traditional Flag Song.
Both nights of the event were scheduled to run until midnight to have as much fun, food and fundraising as possible. Staff, parents and volunteers stayed late to clean up.
The event was held March 7 and March 8 at Flagstaff High School.
An additional photograph of this event can be viewed on page 16.