Article by Tina Eshleman (Former Editor of Richmond Magazine, and who is currently working for the College of William & Mary).
On a sunny Sunday afternoon in October, near the end of the excellent 2021 Richmond Folk Festival, I experienced a session of Lakota Indian Dancing and cultural enlightenment led by two-time world champion hoop dancer – Jasmine Bell. I was so inspired by her story and performance, that I sought to find out more about her and her traditions. It happens that my church music colleague and friend Tina Eshleman, who also attended the festival, had written an article about Jasmine and hoop dancing for the Richmond Folk Festival Information site. I am republishing her wonderful article here with the kind permission of Stephen Lecky, Director of the Richmond Folk Festival ~ Litchatte Editor, Murray Ellison
Jasmine Bell’s dance starts with a single hoop that she twirls as she spins herself around, her feet keeping rhythm to the beat of a drum. Soon, the hoop encircles her as she seamlessly passes through it and picks it up with her feet.
The Lakota hoop dancer builds a story by linking that one hoop with another and another, all the while stepping to the beat until she has created a beautiful design—an eagle, a multilayered flower, a sweat lodge, or a globe of interconnecting hoops that she holds aloft. Some are designs that she created, others are traditions that were passed down through her family.
“You must first learn how to take care of your own heart, your own spirit, your own hoop, and then your hoop becomes stronger and then you’re able to add more relationships and designs that you create,” she says.
Starting with a single hoop, Bell uses as many as 48 when she dances. It’s not unusual to hear gasps of astonishment as she gracefully maneuvers the rings. But for her, hoop dancing is not just a performance. It’s a way of life, a connection to her heritage and to other human beings. The hoop symbolizes Mother Earth and Father Sky coming together as one.
Growing up as part of the Lakota community in the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, Bell saw pictographs of hoop dancers in the caves of the Black Hills of South Dakota.
“It’s something that’s been around for many, many years,” she explains, adding that hoop dancing has evolved from being primarily a healing and ceremonial tradition within the Native American community to also becoming a means of expression and a way of sharing her heritage.
As a female hoop dancer, Bell is a pioneer in what had been a male-dominated tradition. She started learning to dance as a toddler from her stepfather and mentor, Dallas Chief Eagle Jr., who formally adopted her as his “hunka” daughter through a Lakota ceremony. A member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, he has been hoop dancing since age 13.
“He said there’s a balance that has been missing for a long time within that circle,” remarks Bell. “I brought back a balance within that sacred circle that my father taught me since I was a very young girl, and I actually had to go through quite a few different obstacles in my life that helped pave this new pathway for our younger female generation.”
Hoop dancing is spiritual for Bell, who feels it conveys a message of unity that is needed in the world today.
“We are all connected with that circle of life so each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or where we come from, we all are human and we all are connected within that circle,” she says.
Andrea Graham, a folklorist who has watched Bell develop as a performer and presenter over two decades, explains that educating people about Native American history and culture is an important part of Bell’s mission.
“I think she would very much see herself as an ambassador,” claims Graham, who works in the American Studies Program at the University of Wyoming. “It’s important that people understand the depth of Native traditions and that the Native people are still here and not in the past.”
As she introduces her dances, Bell is mindful of those who are watching.
“I think each person has their own connection to the hoop dance and they’re going to learn specific details that really connect with them when I speak,” she explains. “I never write my speeches down. I speak from the heart, and so I ask the creator, ‘OK, give me the words that I need to speak, you know the words that those here are in need of.”
Healing also remains an important element of Bell’s hoop dancing.
“A lot of times people don’t realize I’m praying as I’m dancing, for each and every one of the audience members that are in need of prayer at that time, or that are going through a hard time,” she says. “That’s where the healing part comes from so when I’m done dancing, I can literally feel my prayers going up.”
Hoop dancing helped Bell heal, too, after her beloved older brother, Dallas Chief Eagle III, was killed in a car accident when she was just 14. A college student at the time, he had been training for the World Championship Hoop Dance Contest in Arizona when he died.
“When he passed away, my heart was broken and I thought, ‘What can I do to carry on his tradition, and what can I do to help heal my broken hoop?’” she remembers. “Every time I would dance, I could feel his spirit there with me, and that was where that healing process came from that helped me heal through that tragic event.”
Bell decided she would compete in her brother’s place and she began a daily training regimen.
“I went down to the competition that year and I took first place in honor of my brother,” she says. “Then I went back the next year and took first place again and that was more like proving that I not only sacrificed and put all my energy into my brother’s dream, but I was able to accomplish my own dream and goal as well.”
As a teenager, Bell became the first female winner in the hoop dance championships. Now she is a role model for other young women.
“Hoop dancing is becoming more open to women now, I think in part due to Jasmine’s success,” suggests Josh Chrysler, a folklorist and health and wellness specialist with the Wyoming Arts Council. “And I know that she has been working with some of her own daughters to pass that tradition to them as well.”
When Bell performs, she talks to the audience about the meaning and history of hoop dancing. Afterward, she often invites members of the audience to dance with her, and guides them through the steps.
“That gives them an opportunity to connect their hoop together and really feel that power of hoop dancing, so we call it the people’s hoop dance,” she says.
Although she has not performed in Richmond before, Bell has traveled around the country and across the world to dance—from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to Salzburg, Austria—and has appeared on the Travel Channel as well as Good Morning America.
One of her favorite memories is meeting boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who attended an event where she was performing in Columbus, Ohio, at about age 16. While others were waiting in line for autographs, Bell told Ali’s security officer that she had a traditional healing gift of sweetgrass and sage to pass along to the legendary boxer.
“He said, ‘How about you give it to him yourself,’ and that’s when I got that chance to go back and meet him and he kissed me on the cheek,” Bell recalls. “I swear I didn’t wash my cheek for five days!”
Ali encouraged her to keep going as a world champion, and afterward, he sat in front of the stage as she performed.
“When I got done dancing, he stood up and started clapping,” she remembers. “He gave me a standing ovation then everybody in the whole place just stood up and started cheering and clapping.”
Bell performs to the music played by the North Bear drum group, which she calls the heartbeat of the nation. Jasmine Bell & North Bear participated in the virtual Richmond Folk Festival in October 2020, performing remotely from the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
She met her husband, Luke Bell, the lead singer of North Bear when she was performing at the Cheyenne Frontier Days festival in Wyoming. Luke, who is part of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribe, often accompanies his wife, but he will be at home with their family when she travels to the festival this year. The other members of North Bear will perform with Jasmine Bell.
Established in 2003, North Bear performed previously at the Richmond Folk Festival in 2009, and the group was named world hand drum singing champion in 2012 at the annual Gathering of Nations Powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, winning accolades for their four-part harmonies.
“That drum, that heartbeat, is most sacred in our tribe, because without that heartbeat, without that drumbeat, there is no dance,” Jasmine Bell explains. “If you don’t have that drumbeat or that heartbeat, then you really don’t have a song to dance to, so it goes hand in hand.”
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