Quyana Night opens AFN with ovations and a dance of reclaimed tradition

The first night of Quyana filled Anchorage's Dena'ina Center on October 22 as the Alaska Federation of Natives convention opened, Alaska Public Media reported. Fourteen Alaska Native dance groups are performing across the two nights, from the Aleutians, Southeast, the Yukon-Kuskokwim area, Kodiak Island, and communities on the North Slope. The gathering has run for more than four decades. Organizers say it began as a thank-you for support of subsistence. Quyana means thank you in Yup'ik.

Susan Patkotak, 21, dances with the Barrow Dancers from Utqiagvik. She created a song to reclaim an Inupiaq dancing tradition she had not been part of as a child. She first performed it last year at Kivgiq in Utqiagvik. At Quyana, a crowd from around the state gave her a standing ovation and called for an encore. She told the station the song is a way to heal for anyone who can relate to it, and that the story belongs to Indigenous people whose dancing had been taken away.