This is a picture of some bead work that I have done recently.  It is for my new dance regalia.  Yep, I dance.  No, not the type of stuff you’ll see on America’s best dance crew or dancing with the stars.  I do pow wow dancing.

I grew up going to pow wows around Los Angeles (People may not realize this, but Los Angeles has the largest population of American Indians in the country…however there is also a large population of people here in general).  I started dancing when I was around 2 years old.  The style of dancing I first learned is called fancy shawl.  This type of dance is pretty athletic since it involves a lot o continuous jumping.  When I got a little older my asthma started to get worse so I couldn’t keep doing this type of dance.  I switched to doing something kind of odd.  I would wear my traditional Navajo clothes and dance at the pow wows.

Now, I’m sure a lot of you have no clue why that is kind of strange.  Navajos don’t traditionally have pow wows, and there is a certain type of dance and dress that is expected at a pow wow…and a woven Navajo rug dress is not really expected.

When I was in college I was in charge of planning a pow wow.  The first year I did it the pow wow was great.  There were so many dancers the ground literally shook with the beat of the drum.  I was so happy.  So I decided to do it another year.  This was going to be even bigger and better than the last.  It was my last year in college and I was going to go out having accomplished something spectacular.  I fund raised all  year (frybread Fridays every week!), lost a lot of sleep and everything was set to go.

Then the weather report came in.  The night before the pow wow it rained.  I was on the pow wow field saturday morning at 4am.  I can remember so clearly seeing the huge puddle of standing water 3 inches deep in the middle of what was supposed to be the pow wow arena.  We had to cancel.

Since then, I haven’t really danced much.  I still go to pow wows all the time but I haven’t dressed in my regalia.  A few years ago my sister adopted two little girls who took up dancing.  I really enjoy watching them dance and I feel like I should be encouraging them to continue.  So, I’ve decided to take it up again, and this beadwork is the first piece of my regalia that I have completed.  The rest of it is still in the works…but it will be coming soon enough.