'Dances are stories' — Native American Hoop Dancing comes to Salt Lake

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SALT LAKE CITY — Red Butte Gardens hosted its first Intermountain Hoop Dance Competition Saturday, with dancers traveling from as far as Canada to share the cultural heritage of their tribes and win cash prizes.

Circles of men on each side of a large competition stage sat around large drums, singing out in a rhythmic cadence while striking the heads together.

Percussion rebounded off the back walls of the garden hillside. Burning sage colored the air. Dancers spun with an impossible number of thin hoops in their hands, which they manipulated, linked together and broke apart to form great wings and globes and tails.

"Our songs and dances are stories," one of the event advisors, Terry Goedel, said. "It's an eagle, and it represents us in our journey to life. They're telling this story of their own personal journey."

This is a story of the world of the people, where they came from and how they fit together."

Saturday's 31 competitors came from many different walks of life and levels of experience, representing just a handful of the over 570 Native American tribes across North America. Some traveled from Oklahoma, Illinois and Alberta, not to mention the Intermountain West.

Naakai Tsosie, has been dancing for 20 years and met his wife doing it. Now, working toward a doctorate degree in chemical engineering, his routine has become an expression of determination.

"Classes are hard. You fail a couple, you pass a couple, you barely skim by on some of them," he said. "In my routine, I feel the same things in the story I tell. These dances are hard, and a lot of the moves are hard. I want to show where I've come from, and that I'm not afraid to mess up."

"I'm excited to give it my all, and, for me, it's a story of perseverance," Tsosie said. He took third place in the men's division.

For others, dancing is part of a family tradition. "I come from a long line of hoop dancers," said Starr Chief Eagle, who traveled from Chicago to compete. She ultimately won first place in the women's category. Her winning routine featured a long tail-like formation of hoops her father invented.

During the dances, the crowd whistled and cheered, with judges watching from the eaves.

Eight-year-old Jaden Secody had been dancing since he was 3 and walked away with a certificate for second place and $75. His father, Joseph Secody, took second in the adult men's category.

Hoop dance has many regional styles and has spread throughout the indigenous community. Tsosie said, "Even though this isn't part of my tribe, it's one of those dances that many tribes can dance."

"Originally, this came to us from the Taos Pueblo Indians," Goedel said, adding, "probably, at some point became an individual dance."

When he first started dancing in the 70s, Goedel estimated there were between 20 and 30 hoop dancers around the country. The style is much less popular than other competition-dance styles found at powwows, including traditional, fancy, jingle and grass dances where big money is on the line.

The real "Olympics" of hoop dancing takes place at the Heard Museum in Phoenix every year. Many of the dancers on stage Saturday have attended. Goedel took 2nd in the senior category this year.

Goedel and Jeanie Groves organized Saturday's event intending to come back every year, to build a pipeline of regional youth dancers. "This is a good starting point for this area to grow and develop our dancers that are here, especially the youth," Goedel said. "We can't keep it going unless we get our young dancers dancing at a higher level."

"I'm really excited because if we can bring a competition here, it'll bring in more people," Tsosie said. "The more native Americans that we can bring to dance, to me, the stronger our culture and stronger we will be. We're starting to reconnect and bring this back."

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Collin Leonard

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Collin Leonard is a reporter for KSL.com. He covers federal and state courts, as well as northern Utah communities and military news. Collin is a graduate of Duke University.