Dancing Defiance: From Native American Women’s Fancy Shawl Dance to Indigenous Burlesque and Pole Dance
Abstract
My doctoral dissertation argues that Indigenous Women (Native American and First Nations) have used dance as a mode and act of defying the containment which colonization has imposed. I first trace this through a close look at Native American Fancy Shawl dancing and its history, at attempts to contain Fancy Shawl by university cultural clubs, and at how Fancy Shawl dancing exceeds those attempts at containment. My research then transitions to a different era, looking at Indigenous women, femmes, non-binary, and Two-Spirit Burlesque artists and Pole Dancers, arguing for the ongoing connections between contemporary Native women’s danced defiance, and that of early Fancy Dance creators. Throughout the dissertation I weave my experiences as both a Fancy Shawl dancer and a pole dancer, turning to my own body as part of my methodological approach alongside conducted interviews with Indigenous artists.