Georgian College is celebrating Indigenous culture with its first Pow Wow At Home Virtual Festival.
Students, faculty, staff and the public are invited to participate, celebrate and learn about Indigenous culture, songs and dance.
The event, organized by the Barrie Campus Indigenous Resource Centre’s students and staff, features virtual dance competitions throughout the month of March.
“Every year we have amazing dancers, drummers and crafters come together for a really special event but naturally we needed to do things a little differently this this year,” said Special Events Co-ordinator Beedahsiga Elliott. “So, we’ve moved the Pow Wow virtually and also made it a fun dance competition. We’re asking our dancers to submit video of their style of dance and to choose their own music. All the videos will then be compiled together and we’ll have a contest to see who danced the best.”
The dance categories have been broken up between women, men, and teenagers who will be competing over the next three weeks. All the dancers have to follow a specific set of guidelines with the first-place winners in each category winning $750.
Everyone is invited to follow the hashtag #GCPowWowAtHome on YouTube and other social media platforms.
The women’s competition takes place this week with winners announced on Friday, March 12. The teen’s competition will run March 15 to 19 with the men’s competition wrapping things up from March 22 to 26.
“We hope everyone will check out the dancers and participate in the voting by following the hashtag #GCPowWowAtHome,” said Elliott. “We’re excited about this new way to connect with Mother Earth and we honour those who are here, those who have come before us and those who will be here after us.”
We're so excited to take our annual pow wow virtual this year!
Learn more about #GCPowWowAtHome: https://t.co/4Az1vq9cgm https://t.co/Iascy03IrB
— Georgian College (@georgiancollege) March 10, 2021
