OU College of Fine Arts to honor Five Moons ballerinas | News

The Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts will host the Five Moons Dance Festival to honor OU School of Dance co-founder and the Five Moons ballerinas on Saturday.

The Five Moons Dance Festival will pay tribute to OU School of Dance co-founder Yvonne Chouteau. Chouteau was one of the Five Moons, five internationally acclaimed Native American ballerinas from Oklahoma from the 20th century.

The festival will feature various public events, including panel discussions, a Native art market and Shawnee stomp dance. The festival will conclude with a ticketed dance performance on Sunday.

Maggie Boyett, chief communications officer for the Shawnee Tribe and an OU modern dance performance graduate, expressed her excitement about the festival in a press release. She wrote that it was an honor to collaborate with the family of Chouteau. 

“We intentionally highlighted other Shawnee artists and culture bearers in the festival programming, as well as included representatives from each of the other Five Moons’ Tribal nations,” Boyett wrote in the release.

According to Boyett, this year’s festival, which has been in development since 2023, is the first of its kind in Oklahoma. Boyett said she was pleased that the Jacobson House Native Art Center and the First Americans Museum are playing a part in making the event a success. 

The festival will begin on Aug. 24 with an exhibition at the Jacobson House Native Art Center, showcasing artists from the ballerinas’ Tribal nations. It will be followed by a panel discussion on Cherokee-Quapaw composer Louis Ballard Sr. and two of his ballads.

The evening will continue at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City with a panel discussion with Shoshana Wasserman and the current chiefs of the Five Moons’ Tribal nations. The night will end with the Troy Little Axe Sr. and James R. Squirrel Memorial Stomp Dance.

On Aug. 25, the festival will feature a performance at the Reynolds Performing Arts Center including contributions from the American Ballet Theatre, Oklahoma City Ballet, Tulsa Ballet and OU School of Dance students.

For more information about the festival visit https://dance.ou.edu/fivemoonsfest.

This story was edited by Ismael Lele, Anusha Fathepure and Ana Barboza. Natalie Armour and Avery Avery copy edited this story.