Umi IMAN dances the Jingle Dress Dance against a white background, wearing a sacred regalia known as the Jingle Dress. IMAN’s dress, like others of its kind, is adorned with rows of metallic cones that create sound as she moves. The Jingle Dress Dance is a healing dance that originated with the Ojibwe people and is now embraced across many Native communities.

Creating a Home for Afro-Indigenous Dance

Afro-Indigenous Muslim dance artist Umi IMAN explores how home, identity, and community shape her work through Al Taw’am and Sequoia Ascension, using dance as a tool for cultural preservation, resistance, and belonging.

March 30, 2026  |  Read Article

Dancers wearing red and white regalia dance in front of a projection of a beaver.

Sovereignty in How We Express Ourselves

Margaret Grenier, director of Dancers of Damelahamid, an Indigenous dance company based in British Columbia, describes how the company is founded upon more than five decades of extensive song and dance revitalization.

April 22, 2024  |  Read Article

The Spiritual Work of Dancing

Gabrielle Thomas, a choreographer at Atamira Dance Company in New Zealand, discusses how her choreography draws upon her Māori worldview and how motherhood and living in a small town inform her process.

May 11, 2020  |  Read Article

“An Expression of My Māori Culture”

Louise Potiki Bryant - a choreographer and dance artist in Aotearoa/New Zealand - discusses her work, "Onepū," for Atamira Dance Company and how it draws on her feminine understanding of her Māori ancestry and mythos.  

August 1, 2019  |  Read Article