KODIAK, Alaska (KTUU) – The Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers will be one of many groups featured during the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. from July 2 to 7.
This year’s theme is “Youth and the Future of Culture.” The festival highlights the variety of cultures, traditions, languages, art and music from around the world.
The Kodiak Alutiiq Dancers say they are eager to share their heritage with everyone in the heart of the nation. The group even created their own summer regalia to celebrate the occasion.
“I’m excited to finally dance outside of Alaska. All the dance performances I’ve gone to have been in Alaska with Alaskans.” Dancer Hunter Simeonoff said.
He continued, “I’m bringing some pieces of red cedar down with me that I’m going to carve there and show we’re still actively making art — and where I learned it from, which is my father and my uncle. And some of the history on our art and how not all of it is here in Kodiak anymore.”
Fellow dancer Mariah Stapleton said, “We’re going to dance some older songs that we got taught in Yupik in our original dance group, and we translated them into Alutiiq, which is kind of exciting. We get to kind of showcase those songs. We all made brand new dance regalia for this.”
The group travels to Washington, D.C. on Sunday.
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