Pete FourWinds - Native American Hoop Dancer

The Native American Hoop Dance is an ancient and sacred ceremonial dance that was largely forgotten until it was reborn in the 1920's as the contemporary and very flashy hoop dance we know today. The individual hoops can represent as many things as there are hoop dancers to share this dance. My hoops are colored black, red, yellow, and white in four equal quarters. The colors in my hoops represent the individuality and diversity of the four major races of people on earth, but they are all together on each hop to represent that despite our differences, we are all the same.

Like the colors and meanings of each hoop, the dance itself tells as many stories and has as many meanings as there are hoop dancers. My presentation of the hoop dance tells the story of all life, from the lowest single cell organism to the world as a whole. Opening your heart and mind will allow you to see many aspects of life within the hoops, from birds, to horses, to flowers. What you see is dictated and limited only by your imagination, and there are no wrong answers in what shapes might present themselves to you.

My performance of the Hoop Dance at the Wollomonuppoag Indian Council's 34th Annual Powwow at La Salette Shrine Fairgrounds, Attleboro MA, on June 7, 2008. This was a 97 degree day with zero breeze, so THANK YOU UNDER ARMOUR!!!