Dancing With The Spirit

Students in Ruby, Alaska with musicians Forrest Allen and Tarah Williams. This school year 2023-2024, Dancing with the Spirit spent 31 weeks in village schools and one week in Juneau teaching guitar, fiddle, ukulele, singing and dancing—plus involved many storytellers and fluent Native language speakers passing on their culture and wisdom to the students. We were mostly in the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) region in Interior Alaska.  Alex Troutman, senior producer with Channel Films and a member of the Haida Nation, traveled with us to Arctic Village last December to get footage to make a 3-5 minute Dancing with the…

During our 2023 spring music camps, musician Ricky Frank offers a fiddle lesson to enthusiastic students at Arctic Village School. Since we were able to get back to traveling at the end of March 2022—we have spent 40 weeks in villages leading Music and Culture School Camps that bring so much happiness and joy to students, elders, and communities. We’ve contracted with many more Native instructors from the villages so we can spend additional time on culture, language and healthy living. There are now many more young musicians and 1000’s of additional musical instruments in the villages thanks to support…

In August 2022 Dancing With The Spirit organized and led a Gwich’in Youth and Elders Trip to the Midway Lake Music Festival in Teetl'it Zheh (Fort McPherson), Canada, with 11 Gwich'in youth in grades 6-10, 6 Gwich'in elders, Native speakers and musicians from the Yukon Flats of Alaska. The Midway Lake Music Festival is a large regional gathering celebrating Gwich’in traditions including music, dance, storytelling and traditional food within a safe and sober environment. The youth performed on stage three times, assisted with instruction during the youth music camp, made new friends and life-long connections in the Gwich'in community, practiced speaking and…

Portugal. The Man founding band members John Gourley and Zach Carothers visited the Native village of Tyonek in October 2019 with Dancing with the Spirit instructors Rion Schmidt and Mirah Phelps - teaching and inspiring the students to sing their Grammy Award Winning song Feel It Still.   Thank you Portugal. The Man, Newport Festivals Foundation, Tebughna Foundation, Tyonek School, and the community of Tyonek. John and Zach met at Alaska’s Wasilla High School in 2001. Tyonek School had been wanting Dancing with the Spirit to come for several years—so they were happy when the Newport Festival Foundation offered to fund a…

Fall is changing to winter weather. Summer went quickly and in most of the state, salmon were a little scarce-and so our "big friends" were more prevalent as they looked for fish and berries along with us! Dancing with the Spirit is celebrating 12 years traveling and bringing music and dancing to 53 Alaskan villages-most of them many times! Plus we've sponsored music camps in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau, Kodiak, Cordova, Navajoland, Canada (the Six Nations Reserve, Whitehorse, and the Midway Festival), New York and Hawaii. As Edward Alexander in Fort Yukon said, "The students have such joy and the whole…

It’s early in the morning here in Anvik, a small village here along the lower Yukon River. It’s quiet. Snow is on the ground and I’m hoping my son Mike will make it in today to help with teaching music to the kids. He’s been weathered in at Holycross, a village just south of here, for several days. Josephine Malemute who was teaching with Mike--managed to travel back to her home in Fairbanks after several cancelled flights and harrowing and scary times on small planes. A young local musician, former student Clayton Tichnor, has been filling in for Mike here…

We've had a really fun year building connections between elders and students. In late August, I went to Cruikshank School in Beaver to finish up an all Gwich'in CD that the students recorded there last spring. Look forward to its release later this month!   After an evening church service in Beaver, we had a hot dog roast along the Yukon River enjoying the fall colors and the smell of the campfire. Then in November my son Mike Mickelson and I traveled down the coast to Yakutat for a great week singing, dancing, and playing with their students.  Later, Josephine Malemute and I headed…

  I'm remembering what someone from the Indigenous Theological Institute told me five years ago when we were just getting Dancing with the Spirit started. "It won't be anything like you imagine - but it will be even more wonderful." And so as I travel far from home - with some incredible friends new and old - friendships much deeper and closer than I would have ever believed have developed - that bring so much joy to all of us. Music is going from one village to another on its way around the globe! Mahsi' and baasee and gogedinh and…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Everyone! Masih ‘cho and ana bassee (thanks) for all your prayers and support. I and the Dancing with the Spirit team feel truly blessed to be traveling to the villages with the gift of music. Just before Christmas, my son Mike and I were in Arctic Village where it warmed up to 45 below! I woke up to the beauty of the almost full moon over the snow-covered mountains and the nearby log cabins and the old log cabin church… Three elders (the Rev. Trimble Gilbert, Gideon James, and Lillian Garnett) helped us with…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! December 12th, we watched the full moon rise over the snow-covered mountains around Arctic Village.  Some of the smaller kids didn't come to school at the beginning of the week because it was 50 degrees below zero!  But we had a huge potlatch, student concert, and dance on Friday.  The kids sang and played Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Away in the Manger, Silent Night, the Little Drummer Boy--and We Wish You a Merry Christmas in Gwich'in. Two elders, the Rev. Trimble Gilbert and Gideon James, taught with us all week and told stories of Christmas…