The Cama-i Dance Festival - Mar 30, 31, and April 1st, 2007
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 3:03 pm
Thanks to an_alaskan_abroad
The Cama-i Dance Festival, perhaps Alaska’s biggest annual arts event, has been canceled this year because there’s no place to hold it. A press release from the Bethel Council on the Arts, which organizes the festival, said the problem that Bethel Regional High School, “the only facility in Bethel able to accommodate the variety of activities and the number of people that attend Cama-i,” is undergoing construction and remodeling.
The festival, focusing on Native Alaska dancing, has grown significantly since the late Nicholas Ayaginar Charles arranged for demonstrations of Yup’ik dance in Bethel in the 1970s. In recent years many thousands of people have gathered for three days of dancing and related performances in the high school’s gym. Cultural dancers from as far off as Russia and Brazil have participated.
The press release stressed that the festival “will not end. We are already planning Cama-i 2007 for Mar 30, 31, and April 1st.” Organizers also said that the Bethel Council on the Arts will sponsor a more limited “Day of Dance” featuring dance groups from Bethel on April 8 of this year.