LUSK - Students sat riveted as a woman in a brilliantly colored costume danced and swayed with energetic restrain moving vibrant hoops through motions that connected and shifted the shapes of the hoops around her body. Starr Chief Eagle not only performed a hoop dance for the students of LEMS but also worked with a group of students to show them the basics of hoop dances. She provided interactive games and taught those in attendance some of the Lakota language.

According to her press biography, Chief Eagle shares the teachings and culture of the Lakota people through language dance and song.

Chief Eagle is an enrolled member of the Sicangu (Rosebud) Lakota Sioux Tribe. She was born with the Lakota name Wichahpi Tokahe (First Star) and was later given the Lakota name Wichahpi Ohitika Winyan (Brave Star Woman) as she entered into adulthood. She grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota including Rapid City and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and started hoop dancing before she could walk and since then has been practicing every year to improve her techniques and skills. Starr was raised up in hoop dancing by her father Dallas Chief Eagle and continues to carry on his teachings with a combination of her own.

Native American hoop dancing has a long tradition with the dance symbolizing a prayer that the promised renewal of the collective human spirit will accelerate and that we will all find out place in one great hope made up of many hoops. The hoops themselves symbolize the never-ending cycle of life.

Every dance is as individual as the person who choreographs it. Different tribes have different traditions and specific movements and beats along with their dance dress. Some dancers mimic animals such as birds or working of hunting, fishing, planting and harvesting.

Chief Eagle has performed around the world and continues to work on educating and connecting through her story of dance.

The event was hosted by Community 4 Kids.