We are very excited to welcome the Jones Benally Family for Hear Our Voices on May 8th at 11:00 AM CST! Jones, Jeneda, Clayson, Dyatihi, Deezhchiil, Zonnie, and Bahiyyah Benally are excited to share Navajo stories about planting corn, shearing sheep, and history! A craft will also be available, with more details coming soon.
Hear Our Voices features storytellers from various indigenous nations, bringing in knowledge and wisdom through the telling of traditional oral tales. On the second Saturday of each month, we host a new indigenous storyteller, which is curated by Gayle Ross.
World Champion hoop dancer and traditional healer Jones Benally, his daughter Jeneda, his son Clayson, and his three young grandchildren form the Jones Benally Family Dancers. Navajo dance is a sacred tradition encompassing a wide variety of forms, all of which aim to heal the body, mind, or spirit. When presented outside the Navajo community, these dances are modified for public viewing, but they retain their deep capacity to move hearts and minds. The family sings, chants, plays traditional rhythm instruments, and performs a repertoire of over 20 dances, including traditional forms such as basket dance, eagle dance, feather dance, and corn grinding. They are particularly well known for the hoop dance, in which they evoke traditional figures and shapes using five, nine, a dozen, or many more hoops.
