Native American Dancers at American West Heritage Center
The American West Heritage Center is pleased to announce the visitation of the Star Road Dance Company as a visiting artist during its Daily Adventures. The Star Road Dance Company comes from New Mexico. They will feature storytelling and dancing at 11 am and 3 pm on June 2 at the Heritage Center. Price for the dance company is included with admission-which are half off during the Heritage Center’s Sneak Preview Week, which runs through June 2. They will also be appearing at the Cache County 150th anniversary celebration on Friday night, June 1. For more information, you can visit the Heritage Center’s website: www.awhc.org .
The Star Road Dance Company is comprised of Kel Rainer and his family. He travels around the country dancing with this family and even appeared in Korea in 2006. “It’s become very enjoyable,” Rainer said. Such a busy schedule often keeps him at his home in Taos, where he is a teacher at Taos Day School, for only about seven months out of the year, “but, it’s worth it. Growing my family up in [dancing] has helped me to see how we can bind together and be a tighter family. You don’t really, I think as a father, appreciate your children until you can sit back and watch them in their own element. Those times when we can perform and where I can see Kenyon dance, that’s when I get to see who he really is and his soul inside of him. I give thanks to our father in heaven that I can have a son like Kenyon.”
As with many native traditions, it falls to the youngest generation to carry on the legacy taught by parents. Such is the case with Rainer’s son Kenyon. “One of the first things I learned is to always take care of your hoops,” Kenyon said, “and never throw them around, and they will be good to you.” As he learns to do the hoop dance, Kenyon remarked, “It’s very special. It’s what made the wind and the animals give their life, like their soul. That’s what makes them move, like the snake, for example, how it slithers and how when I dance I can make the river running wild, and then how it twists and turns. That brings the river so we can have water to drink and make stuff. And it helps us because sometimes, in some cultures, they believe a certain kind of plant, it can help you, but without water it would not even exist.”
Asked if he thinks he’ll keep dancing for the rest of his life, Kenyon said, without hesitation, ” Yes.”
Member of The Star Road Dance Company