INDIAN DANCERS TAKE THE STAGE

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -- As someone who had been participating in Indian dances since childhood, Dennis Zotigh was aware that Native American dances and songs were not considered performing arts.

He envisioned a dance company that performed on the same stages as the world's finest ballets and operas.

"We have made that a reality," Zotigh said.

The Great American Indian Dance Company last year performed on stages in Germany, Korea and throughout Central Asia. At 8 p.m. Sunday, the troupe will appear at Shryock Auditorium on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

Zotigh, the company's director, grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., the son of a San Juan Pueblo-Santee Dakota mother and Kiowa father. His father was involved in the evolution of the powwow in the Southwest.

Zotigh and Artistic Director Shashana Wasserman founded the Great American Indian Dance Company in 1988 in Norman, Okla.

The company promotes four concepts:

-- That American Indians are made up of diverse cultures and speak many different languages.

-- That American Indians must learn to balance their cultural identity in a predominantly non-Indian society.

-- That respect for elders and culture is a value to be instilled in young people.

-- That there are many inaccurate stereotypes about American Indians in books, on TV and in the movies.

In the company's concerts, a narrator takes audiences on a tour through Indian country, making stops among various tribes.

"Indigenous people here are made up of about 500 tribes speaking more than 250 languages and dialects," Zotigh says. "Our cultures are as different as Japanese is from Rwandan, as different as Rwandan is from Brazilian.

"The only things we have in common is that we are on the same continent."

The dances performed are all social dances. "We do not reveal anything about religious ceremonies," Zotigh says. "We don't talk about those in public."

As for stereotypes, Zotigh says Native Americans rarely are the source of information about themselves, with bizarre Hollywood portrayals persisting to this day.

"Dances with Wolves" is a notable exception, Zotigh said. "It is the best movie made to date. It shows Indians that speak fluently instead of broken. They have emotion, love and compassion.

"That's something audiences don't usually see because the person speaking 99 percent of the time is not Indian."

The Great American Indian Dance Company is Indians telling their own story, he says.