BETHEL – Drummers reach deep down to bring out the rhythm of dances old and new at Bethel's Cama-i Dance Festival.
In Yup'ik dance, they mostly sit in the back, almost hidden behind dancers in striking headdresses, fur mukluks and qaspeqs whose stories unfold with choreographed waves of dance fans. But the drummers are loud with their voices and round, modern-style drums, no longer gut or skin but still handcrafted, often covered with the same sort of tough nylon used in parachutes or polyester aircraft fabric.
The multifaceted weekend festival – a mix of performance and instruction, art vendors and fair food – opened Friday evening in the Bethel Regional High School gymnasium. Lumaq Louie Andrew, traditional chief for Bethel's tribe, said the welcome in Yup'ik.
This year's theme is "Community Strength Through Drumming," or "Nunalgutkellriit Piniutiit Cauyakun."
Hundreds of dancers and drummers from more than two dozen groups are performing over 27 hours. There are traditional Yup'ik dancers from Bethel and the broader Yukon-Kuskokwim Region. An Inupiaq group came from Barrow and the Artistic Drift hip-hop group came from Anchorage. There was the world music band Broken Walls, a name that refers to the need to break down walls between First Nations people and those who came later.
Intensity on drums
A group that fit this year's theme is Shasta Taiko, a Japanese-style drum group based in California that is a Cama-i repeat, though not for many years.
"Something new," said Peter Atchak, who is originally from Chevak and is one of the Cama'i announcers and performers. He's heard Shasta Taiko before but said the group's big sound still sparks interest deep inside: "Even for me, when I hear that, it goes way down."
Shasta Taiko is a California-based family musical act: an older couple, Russel Baba and Jeanne Mercer, their son Masato Baba and his wife Courtney Deguchi. Everyone seems to be moving almost all the time, keeping the beat as they circle and twist, jump and spin from big drum to medium to small, keeping the beat as they flow across the stage. Sometimes, they freestyle it.
Taiko is Japanese for drum, which connects back to ancient Japanese culture.
"But the performance style you see is a modern phenomenon," said Russel Baba, now 68. It was developed in Japan after World War II through a retooling of forgotten, ancient songs, he said, then brought to San Francisco, where he and his wife met while they were students of grand master Seiichi Tanaka. Now they teach and play and hold their own outdoor summer music festival in the town of Mount Shasta, where they live. They were inspired, Baba said, by Cama-i.
"What I envy of these people, they are from this area. Their ancestors are from this land. Their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents are all from here," he said.
That connects them to traditions and music going back thousands of years. He has to look across the Pacific Ocean to find his roots.
Drumming under
Gregory Nicholas, a lead drummer for Kassiglurmiut, a dance group that this year blends both the old and new villages of Kasigluk on the tundra, said he remembers learning songs from his grandfather as a small boy. One old song he sang at Cama-i Friday evening was about dipnetting blackfish, then eating the fish raw to get that taste of fresh food.
Kasigluk, unlike some villages, never lost its dancing and drumming. He said the songs have passed through generations.
Same in Barrow, said Fred Aqak Elavgak, lead drummer for Barrow Dancers, which last came to Cama-i in 1998.
"I started at the age of 6 and it's been more than 30-plus years," he said. His wife, dancer Ora Elavgak, said when church leaders told people to quit dancing, "nobody went to church. So they have to give a little." Now Barrow has five or six dance groups. Just seven from their group flew down for Cama-i, but back home 60 to 100 dancers and drummers are part of it, the couple said.
The Barrow drummers were spiffy in white dress shirts and black pants, a look that Fred Elavgak saw in an old Barrow dance group picture and really liked.
They strike the underside of the drum, the way their region has always seemed to do it, he said.
"It just comes naturally," he said.
'Follow the leader'
The style was different still for Unangax Dancers, a young Aleut group based in Anchorage but whose dancers and drummers have roots in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands. They danced barefoot but wore elaborate regalia. Two young women wore fur, as Aleut women would have worn for regalia long ago before the Russian fur traders forbade it, said dancer Tatiana Petticrew. They sang about puffins and ravens, the sea and the islands. At times, the drummers danced in front, holding their drums sideways and beating the rim.
Their drums are smaller and the beat is different from Yup'ik drumming, said 18-year-old Dustin Newman, who is from King Cove and moved to Anchorage a couple of years ago.
"We have a more profound double beat," Newman said. "And our slow beat is a heartbeat. So, a light first beat and a heavy second beat."
Some villages still don't dance or drum, and in some it's coming back.
Kevin Smart is originally from Chevak and David Bill from Toksook Bay, places where dancing is strong. They both ended up in Napakiak and are helping to bring back the tradition there. They drummed the "Hello" song on stage as Cama'i began, helping to support Bethel Traditional Dancers, which is trying to rebuild.
Smart said drumming is not hard to learn:
"Follow the leader and they'll pick it up pretty quick."
Most of the groups will perform again on Sunday. A free after-party concert is planned for Monday evening at the cultural center, featuring Shasta Taiko and Yurartet Singers and Dancers.