Native American Hoop Dance

Native American Hoop Dance is one of the individual dances, and it is performed as a show dance in many tribes. It features a solo dancer dancing with a dozen or more hoops and using them to form a variety of both static and dynamic shapes. Most of the hoop dances in tribes across North America belong to modern hoop dance, which was invented in 1930.

Like other Indigenous dances, hoop dance is not acrobatic, but restrained. The dancer usually takes small steps when performing the dance. Hoop dance, an individual dance, is a "show dance" in some tribes. The dancers will move either clockwise or counterclockwise as determined by their cosmology and worldview. Native American Hoop dance usually focuses on very rapid moves, but sometimes speed and creativeness balance the scoring between Hoop dancers who use only four hoops but dance to extremely fast songs, versus dancers with 20 or more hoops who danced to a slower drumbeat. Every dance is as individual as the person who choreographs it. Some dancers mimic animals or birds or working of hunting, fishing, planting and harvesting. In elaborate sequences of moves, the hoops are made to interlock, and in such a way they can be extended from the body of the dancer to form appendages such as wings and tails.

There are usually 28 hoops used in the hoop dance, and they symbolize "a prayer that the promised renewal of the collective human spirit will accelerate and that we will all find our place in one great hoop made up of many hoops." The dancers usually make their own hoops. Modern hoops are made from an array of materials. Traditional wood hoops made of willow. More popular are reed and plastic hose hoops decorated with tape and paint, according to the dancer's preference. Today, lots of contemporary hoop dancers will color their hoops in four colors to represent the four directions.

According to writer Basil H. Johnston in Anishinaabe culture, a Manitou named Pukawiss, brother of Nanabozho, and born to live amongst the people, created the hoop dance. Unlike the other boys, Pukawiss did not show an interest in running, swimming or hunting. He only wanted to watch the animals. His fascination with things drove his father's interest away from him towards his brother Maudjee-kawiss therefore leading to everyone calling him Pukawiss: the disowned or unwanted. Pukawiss learned so much about life in the movements of eagles, bears, snakes that taking their life would have been wrong. The animals had much to teach human beings about values and relationship like loyalty, kindness and friendship. Pukawiss taught his village about the animals by spinning like an eagle in flight or hopping through grass like rabbits or bouncing like a baby deer. He became a dancer. So many villages wanted him to teach them about the ways of the animals that he had to give up his home and became a permanent visitor. Many women wanted him to settle with them in their village but he preferred to keep moving.

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