Red Crooked Sky Dance Troupe Performs October 21

SALISBURY, MD---The Native American dance troupe Red Crooked Sky brings its high-energy performance to Salisbury University 7 p.m. Thursday, October 21, in Holloway Hall Auditorium. Red Crooked Sky is a multi-generational company of members from several different tribes including Cherokee, Saponi and Lakota. The troupe is based in southeastern Virginia. Several dances are customary, such as the Grass dance, the Jingle Dress dance, the Traditional dance and the Fancy Shawl dance. Most of the dances and costumes have symbolic meaning, such as the Traditional dance, which is a warrior’s dance, usually done by veterans of the Armed Forces who wear a bustle of sacred eagle feathers. Grass dancers are adorned with bells around their ankles to keep time with the drums, which represent the heartbeat of the Earth. The Fancy Shawl dance is a more free-style and modern piece, in which the women of the group turn and spin on their toes with brightly-colored shawls swirling around them. The Jingle Dress dance, performed by young females, is so named because of the small pieces of metal attached to the dancer’s dress, which jingle as she moves, twisting and bouncing to represent the path of life as a changing, bumpy course. All dances are done in a circle to symbolize the circle of life, and audience members are invited to participate in the ending dance. Admission is free and the public is invited. For more information call 410-548-6030 or visit the SU Web site www.salisbury.edu.