Dancers took the celebration onto the Lied Center stage for the 37th KU Powwow, honoring family, tribal representation and the circle of life.
Saturday’s event began with the Powwow 101 by Jancita Warrington, who is of Potawatomi, Menominee, and Ho-Chunk descent.
The presentation acted as a crash course that touched on every core musical aspect of a powwow.
“The drum is what we consider the heartbeat of the people,” Warrington said.
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Concerns of storms pushed the KU powwow indoors, but it didn’t stop the grass, traditional, fancy and jingle dancers.
Echo Long Soldier-Sitting Bear, Oglala-Lakota Sioux, a 26-year-old grass dancer from South Dakota, said that dancing in the circle comes from his heart.
“We do it for our ancestors. We do it for the circle of lives,” Long Soldier-Sitting Bear said. “Dancing to the beat of the drum, which mimics the heart, the čanté, so just doing that means more than anything to me and to my mom, too. I love doing this for her too.”
24-year-old Southern Cloth dancer Arianna Long, Cheyenne and Arapaho, said she was also excited to represent her family in the circle.
“I was raised by women, Arapaho women, and being out there, it just feels very humbling because I get to dance and represent my people,” Long said.
“… My grandma has sisters who made my beadwork, my dresses, and they all support me, and I love them so much. And knowing that I’m out there dancing and representing their work, it just makes me really happy.”
Workshops and presentations that were part of the ninth annual Indigenous Cultures Festival filled the rest of the Lied Center.
Attendees made beaded pouches with artist Phillip Pursel, Ioway, and beaded lanyards with artist Tara Mitchell, Prairie Band Potawatomi, in smaller rooms spread throughout the center.
Mitchell and her mom taught the workshop together, and Mitchell said they regularly pray when making the beadwork to keep positive energy going into the work.
“We believe that when all those thoughts and stuff that are going into that work, the person who is going to wear it, or receives it, is going to feel what you’re feeling,” Mitchell said.
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Logan Pierson (he/him), reporting intern with The Lawrence Times since December 2025, is a senior journalism and photography student at the University of Kansas. He previously contributed to the University Daily Kansan as a senior reporter and beat reporter.
Read his work for the Times here.
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