Celebration

de Rosita Worl

"In 1982, the fledgling Native nonprofit Sealaska Heritage Institute held a dance-and-culture festival to celebrate the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. A couple of hundred Native people gathered in Juneau for the event, called Celebration. They could not have imagined then that Celebration would spark a movement across the region - a renaissance of Native culture that prompted people largely unfamiliar with their heritage to learn their ancestral songs and dances and to make regalia for future Celebrations. Today, Celebration is the largest cultural event in the state, drawing thousands of people to the five day festival. Celebration: Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian Dancing on the Land is the institute's first photo book of the event. Featuring work by the noted Alaska photographer Bill Hess, the book includes images from the first Celebrations to the present-day festivals."--Jacket.