Teller hosts 17th annual Cultural Festival
With the summer subsistence season wrapping up, late September is always a good time to gather in the Bering Strait region. Dozens of dancers, drummers and singers traveled to Teller last weekend for its 17th annual Cultural Festival.
Before the program started, the Teller Lutheran Church Choir opened the festivities with a few hymns. Then Teller Mayor Blanche Okbaok Garnie honored event organizer Cora Ablowaluk with a time piece as a token of appreciation for Ablowaluk’s years of organizing the cultural festival and giving of her time volunteering. NSEDC Teller Representative Joe Garnie, NSEDC’s President & CEO Janis Ivanoff and executive assistant Kathy Wheelehan presented a bouquet of flowers and a vest to Ablowaluk.
The school gym was full on Friday night when the Teller Dancers kicked off the evening’s program. Their lively performance that got the audience on its feet during invitationals.
“That’s how you get the party started,” Ablowaluk told the crowd. “We got a long night ahead of us.”
In addition to its hometown dance group, Teller welcomed the Nome St. Lawrence Island Dancers, the King Island Dancers, the Diomede Dancers, the Gambell Youth Dancers, the Savoonga Youth Dancers and the Unalakleet Dancers. The Kingikmiut Dancers from both Wales and Anchorage also joined in on the celebration.
Many attendees were impressed with the showing from youth dancers this year compared to past years.
“There’s lots of youth, and its good because they need to learn this—it’s part of our culture,” Ablowaluk said.
Carl Tevuq Topkok, the leader of the Teller Dancers, recently moved to Palmer, but he returned for the festival. He also said he was proud to see how young some of the groups are.
“It’s really nice to see that the younger generation has an interest in dancing,” Topkok said, adding that it is important for kids to have a hunger to learn. “We don’t like to force our children to dance. It has to be in their heart. They have to have the passion for it.”
Some of the groups are also young in a different sense. The Unalakleet Dancers formed their group less than a year ago. They have a mixture of Iñupiaq and Yup’ik songs. The group performed at the Stebbins potlatch earlier this year, and they were excited to be in Teller for their first Iñupiaq-hosted event.
“We’re so glad to be learning our ways,” said Linda Cooper as she introduced the group. “We’re so glad to be learning our song and dance.”
The party continued on Saturday night with a potluck feast that featured reindeer donated from hunters. The song and dance went well into Sunday morning. Topkok said he took a nap and when he woke up around 9:30 a.m. the dancing and singing was still going—and it didn’t stop until after 11 a.m.
“A lot of people don’t dance as regularly as some of us do, but when it comes to dance festival time, it’s always nice to see our cousins come on out on the dance floors,” Topkok said. “That just makes me sing a lot harder when I see some of my cousins coming out on the dance floor that haven’t seen in a while. Once these songs are inside your heart, it’s hard to let go.”