Git Hayetsk dancers from Metlakatla and British Columbia performed Saturday, March 25 for the University of Alaska Southeast’s first annual spring showcase.
The group’s leaders are Dr. Mique’l Dangeli and Mike Dangeli. Mique’l Dangeli, who grew up in Metlakatla in Southeast Alaska, is an assistant professor of Alaska Native Studies at UAS. Mike Dangeli is a carver who grew up in Juneau.
The group’s members come from many nations, including the Tsimshian, Tlingit, Haida, Haisla, Nisga’a, Tsetsaut, Gitxsan and Tahltan. It was the dance group’s first full length performance in Juneau. Since 1999, the group has shared their songs and dances at ceremonial and public events in Canada, U.S. and abroad.
The showcase was supported in part by the Connie Boochever Endowment for the Arts and the Dr. Alfred E. Widmark Native and Rural Student Center Endowment.
Git Hayetsk dancers strew eagle down during one of their first dances. As it wafted through the room, Mike Dangeli told audience members that if eagle down lands on them, it’s considered a blessing, as it is the closest one can get to the spirit world while living.
Dr. Mique’l Dangeli, co-leader of the Git Hayetsk dancers and a professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, in the nax nox of a Thunderbird. Her husband, co-leader Mike Dangeli (on the right, with the drum), said that nax nox means “beyond human power.”
Mique’l Dangeli holds up a hayetsk, or copper shield, the highest form of ceremonial wealth in Tsimshian culture. “Git Hayetsk” means “People of the Copper Shield.” (Mary Catharine Martin | Capital City Weekly)
Prior to this dance, Git Hayetsk co-leader Mique’l Dangeli told the story of her ancestors’ arrival to Metlakatla. As they paddled long lines of canoes people were crying, sad to leave behind the place they’d buried family members and lived for years. As they rounded a point, a woman held up her paddle and rallied them. It was a turning point for the group’s arrival in a new land. Photos by Mary Catharine Martin | Capital City Weekly
