The Bizhiki Culture and Dance Company visited the Winter School District recently to engage and educate our students about traditional Ojibwe style dance and music. With them, they brought a chicken style dancer, a men's traditional dancer and a women's jingle dress dancer. As well as, three men who sang on a drum and an Ojibwe flute player.
Part of the Bizhiki Dance Company's mission is to further people's understanding of Indigenous cultures through presentations.
To start off their presentation, they told the story of how the Ojibwe people came to play the flute. Before each dance, they explained the backstory to each style of dance and why the Ojibwe people practice those dances. They did three separate presentations; one for our middle school and high school, another for our elementary school and they brought a story teller to tell a couple stories to our 4-K students.
Elementary boys and girls were invited to dance with the dancers. The boys participated in a fish dance, and the girls did the swan dance.