Bethel Council on the Arts

Russian Aleut Dancers

The Cama-i Dance Festival is proud to welcome a Russian dance group to Bethel for the first time since 1994.

Russian Native dancers were the first to be invited when Cama-i organizers started including international groups in the festival in 1993 and 1994. Alaskan Natives maintain close ties to their relations across the Bering Sea and Russian’s Native performers have always proven wildly popular.

"The community of Bethel has been asking us to bring another Russian group to Cama-i for a long time," Cama-i organizer Linda Curda said.

The cost of bringing a group from Russian proven prohibitive to the Bethel Council on the Arts, which sponsors the three-day festival. Curda said she was able to bring over a group Russian Aleuts from the Commander Islands this year because of the money the festival raised last year through ticket sales.

The Russian Aleut group represents two separate communities - Nikolskoye and Bering Island - at the end of the Aleutian Chain. "They just happen to be on the other side of the Date Line from being American," Curda said.

The group is made up of members from two separate groups, Unangan and Chiyan. "They've put together an adult group that represents two elements of their culture," Curda said.

Unangan is a group of enthusiasts who are trying to preserve and promote Aleut folk lore and oral traditions, said Victoria Gofman, executive director of the Aleut International Association in Anchorage. The group has participated in various Russian festivals in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Magadan, Vladivistok and Moscow.

The second group, Chiyan, is named after one of the songs they perform and translates from Aleut as a "chick" or "little bird." This is a family group that received an award at the Contest of Family Folk Groups in Leningrad in 1988, Gofman said.

Chiyan has participated in various festivals including Kamchatka and international festivals in Ukraine. Three of the dance group's members speak Aleut; the rest speak Russian. Cama-i organizers are looking for anyone who can help communicate with the group.

The Russian Aleut Dancers will perform Friday at 11:40 p.m., Saturday at 8:30 p.m. and at 8 p.m. Sunday.