Meanings and messages
<p>Jackie Bird, from the Siseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, performs the hoop dance Wednesday for American Indian Heritage Week at North Idaho College.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Jackie Bird danced to drum beats as she stepped among brightly colored hoops Wednesday in the North Idaho College Student Union Building plaza.
Bird, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux tribal member, journeyed from South Dakota to participate in NIC's weeklong American Indian Heritage celebration.
"I travel all over, keeping the traditions alive, reminding that we are brothers and sisters working together for global healing and world peace," Bird said.
To share her message, Bird uses a multi-talented performance approach.
She sings, dances, plays guitar, and puppeteers, with a little ventriloquism thrown in as well. All the while, Bird shares the meanings and messages of her people's traditions.
"We are borrowing tunes from the universe," Bird said of the way songs are created.
She used the Rocky Mountains, with their high peaks and plunging crevasses, as an example. The melodious message the mountains send Bird comes in a series of high and low vocal tones.
She performed a love song using her Rocky Mountain melody.
"When we're singing, we're singing from the bottoms of our feet to the tops of our heads, every energy center is embraced," Bird said before launching into the song using her guitar, voice and tapping feet.
Bird gave a presentation of various clothing designs modeled by NIC students, and explained the meanings behind the many colors, patterns and images.
"When you see floral on regalia, it says she has beautiful energy. She brings joy wherever she goes," Bird said.
Using a puppet she calls "Grandma," Bird sang a song to one of the men in the audience. At times, the puppet sang some high notes, it's muppet-like mouth open wide. Bird's lips never moved while "Grandma" sang.
The presentation ended with the hoop dance, a sacred tradition Bird has been performing, "with permission from the elders," since 1988.
The dance incorporates dozens of brightly colored hoops that Bird twists and turns around her legs, arms and head, as she freestyle dances and twirls. The hoops are linked and form various configurations around Bird's body.
The linked hoops form a long chain that when attached to a human's arms, look like large, colorful wings.
At the conclusion of the dance, Bird created, around her body, a ball made up of dozens of the hoops. She pulled herself out of it, and held it up over her head as she twirled.
Additional Heritage Week events will take place at NIC today and Friday.
They are open to the public.
* A craft workshop for families takes place from 6 to 8 tonight in the SUB Lake Coeur d'Alene Room. Participants can make dream catchers, necklaces or dolls. Free pizza and refreshments will be available.
* Navajo tribal member Millie Douglas and Ojibwe tribal member Rick Greensky will present "Coyote Story Telling with Puppets" from 6:30 to 7:30 tonight in the SUB Echo Bay Room.
* A presentation on traditional foods of the Coeur d'Alene and Salish tribes takes place Friday from 11 a.m. to noon in the SUB Driftwood Bay Room.
* The event finale, an Inter-Tribal Show, takes place Friday and features emcee/comedian Lux Devereaus of the Blackfeet Tribe, the Shooting Star Dancers from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and Jackie Bird. The show will be from 7 to 9 p.m. in Boswell Hall Schuler Performing Arts Center. Cost is $5. It is free for NIC students with a valid student ID.