Dancin' the night away
Gallup’s summer tradition begins

Aldean Nastacio and other members of the Zuni Cellicion Traditional Dance Group perform the Eagle Dance during the nightly summer dances at the McKinley County Courthouse Tuesday in Gallup. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — With the advent of Memorial Day, Gallup’s free Nightly Indian Dances at the McKinley County Courthouse Square are now drawing their typical mix of tourists and hometown regulars.

Five Native American dance groups are performing in this summer’s dance program, from 7 to 8 p.m. each evening through Labor Day. According to Teri Fraizer, coordinator of the dance program, the groups include the Cellicion Dance Group of Zuni Pueblo; the Pollen Trail Dancers, a Navajo group from Joseph City, Ariz.; Naatsiilid Dance Group, a Navajo group from Shiprock; the Callin Eagle Singers, a powwow dance group from Window Rock featuring members of different tribes; and the White Eagle Dancers of Zuni Pueblo, who are performing in the program for the first time this year.

“We’ve seen an average of 100 people per night so far,” Fraizer said of the program’s first week of attendance.

On Tuesday evening, the Cellicion Dance Group, under the direction of Fernando Cellicion, performed for an appreciative crowd of Native and non-Native people.

“It’s awesome,” Kayla Tucker said of the dancers’ performance. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Tucker, from Mississippi, was accompanied by four other family members who are in the middle of a 10-day vacation in the Southwest that includes stops in Santa Fe, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon.

Gary Manthe, a former Gallup resident who moved away 30 years ago, said he also enjoyed the dance performance.

Manthe, now retired and living in Albuquerque, explained he and his wife were visiting the Gallup area for a few days of sightseeing. Manthe said he particularly enjoyed the company of a local Native American man in the audience, a fellow Vietnam veteran, who sat next to them and explained some of the significance of the dances.

Joni Koehn attended Tuesday’s dance performance as one of her sightseeing stops during her last week in Gallup.

Koehn, a member of a Holdeman Mennonite community in Kansas, said she had just completed a six-month work stint at Gallup’s Christian Child Care Home, a facility for abused and neglected children that Mennonites run on the city’s north side.

“I just wanted to stop by and see what the dances are like,” she said. Evangeline Shultis, a friend of Koehn’s, said she and three other young women had driven to Gallup to spend a week sightseeing in the Southwest before driving Koehn back to Kansas.

But along with out-of-town visitors, Tuesday’s dances attracted many Native American regular audience members.

Fernando Cellicion said he particularly likes returning to the dance program because it not only allows him to meet lots of different people, but it also allows him to reconnect with the many regulars who attend the performances each summer.

“It’s like a little reunion each year,” he said. Just as performing at the Nightly Indian Dances has become a family tradition, Cellicion said he has seen the children of audience members grow up during the years.

Friends and co-workers Kay Peywa and Paula James are two such regulars. Peywa, from Zuni Pueblo, brought her two young grandsons to the Tuesday evening performance.

A manager at the Thunderbird Motel in Gallup, Peywa said she knows the Cellicion family and she enjoys attending the dances almost every other evening.

“I just like to see the dances,” James agreed. James, a motel housekeeper from Gallup, said she likes the current location at the Courthouse Square over the previous location next to the Gallup Cultural Center. The courthouse location is better, James said, because it isn’t so close to the passing trains.

Another frequent regular is Kevin Benally of Gallup. An employee of Tohatchi Area of Opportunity and Services Inc., Benally said he brings some of his clients to the performances each evening during the summer because they enjoy getting out in the community and watching the dances.

Fraizer, who said she has been involved in the dance performances for many years in different capacities, expressed great enthusiasm for the Nightly Indian Dances and their promotion of Native culture to audiences.

“I don’t know anywhere else where you could see this quality of a show for free,” Fraizer said.