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| courtesy of Mattox Ayavilek Metcalf |
 Pound it out: Mattox Ayavilek Metcalf, left, drums with a student during an Eskimo drumming and dancing class in Anchorage. |
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Eskimo drummers sit on an earthen floor inside a sod hut, beating frame drums made of driftwood and stretched walrus stomach, singing the words to a song that describe a recent whale hunt.
The movements of the dancers in front of them mime the actions of the hunters. They kneel as if paddling an umiak (skin boat), stroking with imaginary paddles. They mimic throwing harpoons and cutting up the whale, then distributing the meat.
This is how the Arctic people used to entertain themselves and remember their histories. It is how it used to be and it is how it still is today, minus the sod hut.
Siberian Yup'ik storyteller Mattox Ayavilek Metcalf will offer Juneau residents the chance to learn traditional Eskimo drumming and dancing in a class on Sun., Jan 28, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Perseverance Theatre in Douglas.
The class is sponsored by Opera to GO! as part of their presentation of the Arctic Magic Flute.
"What I want to do is give a history of the dancing. The singing, dancing and drumming will come second after people get a better understanding of the history of it all," said Metcalf, cultural programs coordinator and high school program dance teacher at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage.
"The way we dance now has changed very little in the last 300 years. The reasons why we dance are still the same. The dancing takes place in the wintertime.
"Winters are long, dark and cold, and so dancing brings everybody together. It's a form of storytelling. So basically, as the drummers sing their song, the dancers paint the picture of what's happening in the story. Even though today our stories may change, the way we sing it and dance it are still the same as they've done it for a very long time," he said.
Metcalf was born in Savoonga, Alaska, on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. He was raised in Nome and has lived the last four years in Anchorage.
Over the last three years he has studied with a variety of master Alaskan dancer-singer-drummers, learning the styles of many Alaska Native cultures.
Besides performing traditional songs and dances, today's Arctic singers and dancers reflect modern themes as well.
"The dances can be about any significant occasion or any insignificant occasion in a person's life," Metcalf said. "Long ago we had no written language, and so dancing and singing was a way to remember a certain occasion, such as a hunting trip, or even something as simple as drinking tea or going to visit a relative. It can vary from hunting to walking.
"We have songs that are hundreds and hundreds of years old. We have songs that are recent as just a few weeks old. So we continue to make songs and we continue to pass down the songs that were passed onto us from generation to generation.
"The culture is alive, and it's not just something that happened in the past. We continue to make songs today but continue to sing our old songs as well."
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What is eskimo?
"Eskimo" is a common term for Arctic coastal people from Greenland to northeastern Siberia. More accurately, however, the peoples of the vast region are differentiated by language and culture and have their own names for themselves. For example, the Inuit live in Greenland and Canada, the Inupiat inhabit northern Alaska, the Yup'ik occupy western Alaska's coastal and river regions, the Siberian Yup'ik live on St. Lawrence Island and the Chukchi are home in northeastern Siberia.
