Company funds students

Guide Page 6

Six men sit around a great drum chanting, making thunder, while behind them lightning starts to slash through the sky. The song leader, the men, and the drum are one. The heartbeat of Mother Earth is deeply felt.

When the song is finished, the men gaze at the coming storm from the 8th floor of a New York City highrise.

The group, Heyna Singers ("heyna" is a Hopi word for "second born sons") was founded by Louis Mofsie, the song leader. This is their weekly meeting at the American Indian Community Center where they also perform at monthly powwows.

The men talk about drumming as a "spiritual exercise," a "release," and "a feeling of oneness." Mofsie laughs. "Whatever happens when you sit around a drum, it's very powerful."

Mofsie, a local legend, is also well-known in the Native American community for his founding of the Thunderbird American Indian Dance Company in 1963.

The Heyna Singers are the "Southern style" or "Oklahoma style" singing group for the company. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mofsie was nevertheless always in touch with his Native roots from his mother, a Winnebago, and his father, a Second Mesa Hopi.

"We lived in a community of Mohawk people on Pacific Street. Many of us went to the Cuyler Church, which held services in the Mohawk language," Mofsie remembers. That Mohawk community is gone, but the church is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

"Reverend Cory asked us teenagers if we wanted to start a dance troupe. He would give us space to practise. We thought it was a great idea. We had a Sioux teacher from Pine Ridge who named us The Little Eagles."

The Thunderbird American Indian Dance Company is named for the clan of Mofsie's mother. An institution in the city, it is well known for giving away all the money it earns.

"When we first organized, it was impossible for a non-reservation Native to get any kind of financial help from the government," Mofsie says, "so we set up a scholarship fund."

In its 39 years, the company has awarded more than 500 scholarships, raising much of its funds through a yearly dance concert at Theater for the New City in lower Manhattan.

"We have a core group of 20 dancers all of whom work nine to five at something else," Mofsie, a retired art teacher, explains. "We do five culture areas since we just added Alaskan Inuit. We do the Northwest Coast, Vancouver and British Columbia; the Northeast Coast, the Five Nations; the Southwest, Hopi and other Pueblo Indians; and dances from the Great Plains."

Mofsie explains that the powwow is actually a tradition born in the Great Plains.

"We make it very clear at the beginning of the powwow that this is a Western tradition, and the dances we do there are Western dances," he says. "For instance, there's grass dancing and jingle dress dancing. We do shawl dancing, too, a woman's fancy dance from Oklahoma."

Mofsie, who is both a singer and dancer, stresses the educational value of powwows for both Native and non-Native people.

"For non-Native people, we explain the difference between social and ceremonial dancing, and make it clear that we are performing social dances," Mofsie says.

"For Native people, they get a chance to see dances from traditions different than their own. For instance, we do Five Nations or Iroquois dances. You don't see those very often. Whether we're at a powwow or at an event with schoolchildren, we always explain our dances and the tradition behind them."

The Thunderbird company's two biggest outdoor events are the Queen's County Farm Museum Powwow in New York in July and the Canadian Aboriginal Festival in Toronto in November.

At Queen's County, Mofsie is the emcee.

"We've kept the tradition of the powwow alive in New York City," Mofsie declares. "So many people have the impression that there are no Indians east of the Mississippi. That's why our powwows are so important."

Asked what he hopes to convey to the largely non-Native audience in New York, Mofsie answersunequivocally:

"This is something joyful. I always tell people when they talk about Indian spirituality, when you really think about it, the dancing and the singing, that's the spirit of the people."