The Atka Dancers

The people of Atka are Aleuts; in the native language, they are Unangax. During WWII, they and many other native Alaskan groups were relocated to internment camps. Ostensibly, this was for their own protection from Japanese attack, but it's hard to justify putting them in camps that were little better than prisons. Many village populations were decimated by disease and other problems during their 4 years of internment, Atka among them. Entire villages were burned to the ground while the inhabitants were in the camps in order to prevent the Japanese from using their homes. The most devastating loss was the death of elders with all the knowledge they had of customs and traditions stretching back centuries.

About 20 years ago, a Russian Aleut arrived in Atka. With her she carried knowledge of the old dances. She began to teach the children through the public schools. Adults joined the lessons. The people of the village worked together to create traditional regalia for the dancers. The troupe learned to drum and to sing the native songs.

The Atka Dancers were warmly and enthusiastically welcomed when they started performing at Native festivals. The walls of the school hallways, offices, and display cases are filled with newspaper articles and award certificates from various Alaskan institutions praising the dancers and their contribution to Native Heritage.

I teach a fine/cultural arts elective. I have two sections per day, one with the secondary kids and one with the primary ones. My elective includes Art, Music, Drama, Media, and Movement/Dance. The boys who are my oldest students and most excited about dance asked to use their Dance class for practicing the native dances. I agreed. Today was their first class.

They didn't have a clue how to teach or lead anything. One of the boys who's not part of the group was doing a great job taking the dance apart and teaching it to me while the other 4 dithered. They couldn't recognize that they have to teach the dance, the drumming, and the singing as separate things and then put them together. The class period was mostly spent watching the 4 boys argue.

I absolutely do not want this tradition to die on my watch. I have so many strikes against me--bad knees, bad feet, sciatica--and I'm not a native. Or Native. Yet I feel an obligation to the people who are here now and the spirits of the island to help keep the dancing alive. I hope someday soon I'll be able to share pictures of *my* students dancing the traditional dances!