Native American Dance Essay

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This past semester a topic that I have found fascinating is the traditional and ceremonial aspects of Native American dance wear. My curiosity begun in grade school as I learned about Native Americans; in textbook pictures or recreation videos, my eyes would always shift to the unique regalia. Native American dance is cross-cultural, sharing many of the same characteristics from tribe to tribe. The traditional dress often contains a variety of man made and organic materials, designs, iconography, and meanings. At the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art two paintings figures in profile caught my eye because of their relevance to my childhood curiosity about the traditional dress that are emphasized in each.
Andrew Standing Solider’s(Oglala Lakota) …show more content…
Cheyenne/Arapaho, created the screen print Danseur Moderne(n.d., translated to Modern Dancer). Modern Dancer is similar to Dancer not just in name, but also in the subject of the picture. Modern Dancer portrays a man in bright colors and contrasting values centered on a plain taupe background. From the title, it can be inferred that the subject is dressed to take part in a ceremonial dance, dressed in feathers, a headdress, tribe iconography, and accessories. The positions of the subjects head, arms and legs lead me to believe the subject is in one of the dancing positions, his right foot is extended out like he’s kicking and his left leg in bent behind the right, his arms appear to be in a swinging motion. In his hands are traditional musical instruments, which were played during these ceremonies. The headdress on top of the dancer also appears to go down the center of the head; red hair, Mohawk in style, is accented with four long feathers with blue detail evenly spaced along its length. Unlike the previous painting, the man in Modern Dancer has a gold “frontlet” on his forehead and blue marks across his cheekbones. Around the man’s waist is a black belt with bright magenta trim on the bottom and a white halter like strap with symbolic iconography on top. This belt is also accented with a curved feather detail but much more complex in design and color than the belt in Dancer. On each of the elbows are two symmetrical circular decorations in a radial
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