Champion hoop dancer to perform this weekend at Indian Arts Festival

Five-time world champion hoop dancer and musician Tony Duncan and his family, the Yellowbird Dancers, will perform Saturday and Sunday with the music of Estun-Bah at Smoki Museum's Southwest Indian Arts Festival.

The festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, with performances at noon and 2 p.m. in the Grace Sparkes Activity Center, which is just south of Smoki Museum on the corner of Gurley Street and Arizona Avenue.

Duncan's father taught him hoop dancing and how to play the flute, according to his website. The dance group is made up of his mother and father, his sister and his five brothers.

"We've all been dancing since we were young," Duncan said, "and now my children and my sister's children are dancing with us. You dance for your ancestors to make them proud. I dance for those who danced for me."

Duncan and his family often perform at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, where he likes to hike at Camelback Mountain and Papago Park. His family constructed a wickiup - a Native American house - that stands at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.

Other highlights of the festival include nearly 35 artists selling their work and demonstrating their artistry, including Bruce Hodgins of Chino Valley, a jewelry maker of Navajo ancestry who had a great deal of Hopi influences in his life. He creates silver overlay, a Hopi technique, using Navajo imagery and set stones.

Joining Hodgins will be Navajo weavers who will be demonstrating in the Smoki Pueblo, where there will also be a craft area for children.

Indian fry bread will be among the refreshments available.

Admission is $5, but native people and children will get in for free.

For more information, call 445-1230 or visit www.smokimuseum.org. The Smoki Museum is located at 147 N. Arizona Ave.