The Jingle Dress: Why I Dance

A girl was sick. A dream came to a medicine man. A dress was made from that dream so she could be healed, and in Ojibwe tradition the dress and its dance have carried that healing ever since.

Valerie Leith tells that story on camera, and her own alongside it. She came to me with the idea, decided what she wanted to say, and we shape it together. Valerie is Ojibwe, Dakota, and Menominee.

From the dress she moves to what dancing has given her and who it has made her. She dances in prayer and in thanks. She travels to round dances and ceremonies and helps keep the tradition going. She names the powwow she loves and the dancer from home she looks up to.

She ends with her name. Valerie, and also Miskozenibaanhkwe, Red Ribbon Woman, the name her we'eh, Lavender Doris, gave her, and Hupagluzawiya, Presents the Pipe Woman.

Valerie's voice leads a short film, still in progress, with photographs beside it.

I first photographed Valerie for Threads of Us. She came back with an idea of her own: a film about the jingle dress and what dancing has made of her. The jingle dress dance is a healing dance, and she wanted that at the center. I made the photographs across the same sessions.