The Fifth Dancer

I almost went to Custer County today to finish exploring it, but instead of going to the county named after Gen. George A. Custer, I went to the Red Earth Cultural Indian Festival in Oklahoma City, instead. Ironic, yes? It also turned out to be a great decision.

My son, Matt, once said life shouldn't be about collecting the best stuff, but about collecting the best stories. And, he wasn't talking about books from the library, but stories for your own life, things you could share or reminisce with others about or remember when you got older. I've always kind of liked that. Today, I collected a great story.

My Mom and I went to the Red Earth Cultural Indian Festival in Oklahoma City this afternoon. It was the last day of a three day event. More than 100 tribes were represented by artists, dancers, drummers, and singers from across the nation. Today seemed mostly to be about drum competition, award ceremonies, and the fancy dance competition.

The drum competition was interesting, but I have to admit, after about the third group, they all kind of sounded the same. I'm not sure how they were being judged. They also provided the beat and songs for the fancy dance competition later.

I didn't even know what a fancy dance was until today. However, I learned fancy dancers do not belong to any one tribe but it's a style of dancing. And, that particular style of dancing originated right here in Oklahoma with the Ponca tribe in the 1920s-1930s. It is typically a young man's dance or for someone in very good shape and with good reason. It's the fastest, brightest, and most energetic of all the men's dances and seeing splits, back flips and blinding footwork is not uncommon in this generally freestyle competition. There's also something called "ruffling" which is sort of like a shimmy where all their feathers are shaking.

Oh, yes, there are feathers. Lots and lots of feathers. I'm just going to have to throw a picture in here so you can see what it looks like. This was not taken at the Red Earth Festival in OKC, but is just to give you an idea of what they wore.

Anyway, out of all the 100 plus tribes across the nation participating at Red Earth, they had narrowed it down to the top ten fancy dancers. These were guys who had all won championships before as well. It was definitely not amateur hour. The dancers would compete in one last competition called a spotlight dance. Basically, the 10 judges sat in chairs forming a large sacred circle in the arena and the dancers would dance one at a time in the center of this sacred circle, with a spotlight on them.

They did not get to pick out their drum groups or song they would dance to. Instead, they selected the drum group out of a hat and the drum group chose the song. There were about six drum groups available to choose from. It was a totally free style event, and what makes it even a little more difficult is that the dancers are supposed to do a pose at each end of the beat. I found this out later, and, yes, it's relevant to the story.

Everything was going well until the fifth dancer. He started out great, but kept missing his beats and before the song was even over, he walked out of the circle and out of the arena, with his head hanging. All of this is pretty new to me and I really didn't know what was going on, but from what I gathered from people sitting around me, the drum group messed up and had ruined the dance for him. The audience was not happy. The emcee and some other guy in charge huddled together for a couple of minutes and then the emcee announced the fifth dancer would be given another song to dance to after everyone else had finished dancing. Then he said the judges wanted to remind the drum groups not to "over beat". I don't know what that meant exactly, but it seemed to satisfy the audience.

So the rest of the dancers danced and were amazing, but everyone was really kind of anxious to see what would happen when the fifth dancer came back out. I really wanted to see him do well. He came back out, walked through the circle, and went straight to where the emcee and one of the guys in charge were standing and had a rather lengthy conversation with them.

When the emcee finally let us in on what was happening, it turned out the fifth dancer had chosen to take himself out of the competition. He thought he had done the right thing by leaving the arena early, but he didn't think it would be fair to the other dancers for him to have a second song. He'd had his shot, just like they had had theirs. Instead, he asked to be allowed to do an exhibition dance out of love for the dance, out of respect for his fellow dancers and out of respect to those who had come out to see the dancers. The judges agreed to let him. (And, no, he didn't use the same drum group.)

And, then he danced, and he was a perfectly controlled blur of feathers and feet, and he hit every beat, like a perfect poem. And as he danced, the other dancers came forward and stood in the dim light around the outside of the sacred circle in support of him. And, as he danced the crowd streamed out to the arena floor to throw money at his feet in appreciation for his dancing and to honor his decision.

Oh, but wait...there's more. After the dance and after the yells, whistles and applause died down, the money was gathered by a few volunteers for the fifth dancer. But he refused to take it. Instead, he wanted the drum group who had originally messed up his first dance to have it, to show he had no hard feelings towards them. He asked that they not be discouraged or feel bad in any way, and to keep drumming and keep performing. There were about 8 members in the drum group and when they came forward to shake the fifth dancer's hand and hug him, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. He may not have won the competition, but he won the hearts of everybody there that day.

Today was a good day.