The Past, Present and Future of Kooch-i-ching's Dance Program

By Quinn Pinaire 

John Jolly teaches dancing in 2013. (Kate Downey)

In the early 2000s, I was learning to dance at Kooch-i-ching under the direction of John Jolly. “Isn’t that neat?” he would say, whether teaching me the fear step, showing me a porcupine quill roach or reciting a trickster tale. To Jolly, everything was neat. While my friends and I did not use the same vernacular, we nonetheless agreed.

In those days, I would spend much of my free time in the Council Ring with Bobby Ecker, Patrick Risberg, Eoin Small and my brother Zack, among others, constructing routines and critiquing one another. These sessions often resulted in one person accidentally inventing a new step and everyone else attempting it. We were in the early stages of development as dancers, and as human beings. Double-toe-heeling around the ring, I felt something that was hard to put into words. I felt like I was supposed to be there. It was a good feeling. It was neat.

Jolly’s own dancing career started in a high school classroom in Cincinnati in 1964. He was 8 years old and a member of the Wasaka Boys Club, run by Kooch-i-ching’s visionary fourth director, John Holden. “I didn’t even know what Camp Kooch-i-ching was when I learned to dance at Wasaka. It was just Holden’s way of getting us Cincinnati kids out of the house,” Jolly recalls. “Then I get to camp and my counselors are some of the young men I had been dancing with back home.”

The Past

Kooch-i-ching’s Native American program started in the late 1940s when Dr. Bernard Mason, a student of Ernest Thompson Seton, brought a number of indigenous-inspired traditions to Deer Island from Camp Fairwood in Michigan. This included the Law of the Woods; the dance, crafts and woodsmanship programs; our service-based honor societies; and a reverence for the environment. Dance, conservation and communal living remain three essential pillars of Native American tribes and First Nations.

Mason and Holden were educators and leaders who studied, recorded, practiced, perpetuated and believed in Native American values and the power of dance. These men used their natural gifts to enlighten the minds and move the bodies of young men. For centuries, cultures around the world have believed that the physicality, expressionism and spiritual connections found in dance are qualities that should be passed down for generations. This notion is the driving force behind Kooch-i-ching’s dance program, and the genesis of the feeling for which all dancers dance.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Mason and Holden kindled and developed relationships with residents of Minnesota’s Nett Lake reservation (now called Bois Forte). They invited members of the tribe to come to Deer Island to watch Grand Council and brought Kooch-i-ching dancers to the reservation to participate in powwows and friendship dances.

In these “golden years of dancing,” as described by Jolly, all campers attended for eight-weeks and there was only one Grand Council, imbuing the event with an added mystique and grandeur. Campers and staff spent more time in camp, immersed in the program—practicing their dancing, making their own regalia and preparing for the big show.

The Present

Quinn, right, rehearses for Grand Council with fellow staff members. (Kate Downey)

Today, our dance program is in a state of evolution, staying true to its roots while also expanding and improving. In the years since I was a camper, there has been an increased emphasis on self-discovery and experimentation. The dancing has become faster and more energetic. There are more spins, taps and transitions. Dancers are encouraged to find their own style, ask questions, and be creative.

Over the past decade, dancing at Kooch-i-ching has become a synthesis of indigenous-inspired styles, steps and struts, blended with modern movements and devoid of exclusive constructs. Today, one is hard-pressed to find a Dancing Championship routine without a flair of individuality and creativity.

“I think the program used to be a lot more by the book,” says former staff man (and terrific dancer) Henry Baldwin, referring to Mason’s “Dances and Stories of the American Indian,” a compendium of dances from tribes across the country, and the main teaching resource for instructors at Kooch-i-ching. 

“Everyone had their own style, but at the end of the day, there was a set of moves you learned, and you had to do them the correct way,” Baldwin says. “Over time, I think the dance program has gotten freer—in a good way. When I did my second flaming hoop [dance], I made an effort to do moves that hadn’t been done before. How fast can I really swing myself through it? I think we’ve allowed ourselves to get more creative.”

“That said, it was really cool to have Jimmy Pfeffer come back to camp after seven years and see that old style revived,” he adds. “Longer weaves, more focus on the little things. How Jolly taught it to us. So I think there’s a great balance right now.”

The Future

Staff men dance in formation. (Kate Downey)

As our program continues to evolve, we are seeking guidance. The benefits of indigenous-inspired dance and craft are irrefutable, but their instruction demands authenticity.

While Kooch-i-ching’s Native American program has its roots in cultural exchanges, Mason and Holden are no longer with us, and we have lost access to the bridges they built. Our first priority, as members of the program staff, is to rekindle those relationships and forge new ones. We aspire to bring indigenous voices to camp, whether those individuals come as staff members, instructors, visitors, speakers or story-tellers—even professional dancers or drummers.

While building those relationships will take time, other improvements will be easier to implement, including expanding the educational components of our program—starting with our staff. Prior to arriving at camp this summer, we will ask our staff to read Anton Treuer’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask,” which will serve as a catalyst for discussions and lessons. Preseason will include a “blanket ceremony” led by Reverend Robert Two Bulls, an Oglala Lakota friend of John Grate, Kooch-i-ching’s artist-in-residence. We will also begin the process of labeling all of the totem poles, artwork and regalia on the island, and teaching their origins and meanings to our staff and campers.

More than anything, we want to increase our community’s understanding of Native American and First Nation history, however uncomfortable that history may be. The stereotypical Hollywood depiction of Indians must be replaced, in the minds of campers and staff, by the reality that there exist thousands of unique tribes, bands, First Nations, reservations and communities throughout North America, each with its own customs and traditions.

“While Kooch-i-ching’s Native American program has its roots in cultural exchanges, Mason and Holden are no longer with us, and we have lost access to the bridges they built. Our first priority, as members of the program staff, is to rekindle those relationships and forge new ones.”

When I caught up with John Jolly recently, we spoke for an hour about the merits of dancing at Kooch-i-ching, and the challenges ahead. During our conversation, he said something that stuck with me—a simple truth that I didn’t fully appreciate until recently. “The most important part of our dancing program,” he said, “is that it teaches young boys that it is OK to dance.”

John taught me this lesson as a camper, and I carried it with me into adulthood, passing it down to a new generation of Kooch-i-ching dancers in the process. John sparked my interest in dancing, but I developed my own style, made it my own.

“To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” This Hopi-Choctaw proverb comes closest to describing the sensation I began feeling in my youth—the point in a dancer’s routine when the drum, the feet, the body, the earth and the heart of the dancer are all in unison. I nurtured this feeling and allowed it, along with my body and mind, to grow. It is the closest thing to bliss I have ever known. At its essence, it is neat.

This article was originally published in the Spring 2021 issue of the Kooch-i-ching Tumpline.