Native American Music Festival

Today is an interesting day at the Casa Grande Ruins.  This is the third annual Native American Music Festival.  Travis Terry, master of ceremonies, flutist and recording artist, explained a great deal about Native American culture, music and dance.

This is primarily a flute festival and there were a lot of very nice ones  for sale.  These are all Native American hand-made from native woods.

                       Gabriel Ayala playing excellent classical music. 

                    Basket dancers from the Gila River Indian Reservation.

                         Jeremy Dancing Bull is a singer, dancer and drummer.

 Tony Duncan is a four-time World Champion Teen Hoop Dancer and has just recently won the adult World Championship.  He is consistently ranked in the top ten in the world.

                          He did a very intricate one-hoop dance for us.

                                        As well as an eight-hoop dance.

The hoops can represent birds, animals, objects and have great symbolism.

 This is an alligator with moving jaws. We also saw animated butterflies, eagles, a rattlesnake and a horseback rider with a lasso.

Tony does dances with as many as 36 hoops. This is the end of this dance, showing the world and representing the Circle of Life.

Tony has also won many top awards as a Native American drummer and flutist.  Here he is playing the rarely heard Apache Cane flute.

Many of these performers are multi-talented and most also told of their culture, traditions and up-bringing.

You can learn more and hear Tony’s music by going to:  www.invinciblemusic.com/estun-bah.   If you want to see him dance, right click and open link. www.heard.org/hoop/.  Or, better yet, we’ll see you next Feb. 4&5 in Phoenix at the 22nd Native American World Champion Hoop Festival.