White Mountain Apache Culture Center and Museum/Sunrise Dance 2 (1976)

Summary: 
Two young Apache/Ndee women perform the Sunrise Dance/Na’íí’ees, a puberty ceremony (a continuation from "White Mountain Apache Culture Center and Museum 1").
Description: 

Close-up of the teenage girl/na'ilín (with a feather on each shoulder, in ceremonial dress and holding a decorative cane with bells, feathers at the curve at top) and a woman beside her performing the Sunrise Dance ceremony (Na’íí’ees), the camera pulls out to show the male singers and drummers behind her and then over past the crowd assembled around her, to three older folks dancing across from her linked arm-in-arm dancing forward and backward, and behind them a group of women doing the same; back to the girl and her dance partner and singers; they stop; an older man gestures to others and camera pans back to the dancers and singers who are moving again, and then down to show their skirts and more of the cane she is tapping to the beat; then closer shots of the pair alternating with the crowd and lines of responding dancers; the teenage dancer standing by herself perhaps posing for pictures and then she walks off; then a group of people begin moving boxes of food stuffs from nearby cars into two parallel rows with a rug at the end, the camera pans past a field with some trash on the grass and a vehicle, to a group of people around a campfire, the people look at the camera, then back to the people lining up the boxes of food, some folks standing around; camera goes off for a bit; then back to the girl of the hour standing with another teenage girl (her new dance partner) helping her with her hair, people walking around, and the camera pans past the boxes of food (fruit, canned and boxed goods) to a milk pale and rug at the end of the row, and back to the two girls standing by, then the main girl admiring her cane and walking around a bit, waiting, then her dance partner joins her and they smile and look around; camera pans over to the drumming men (one man is Sam from "White Mountain Apache Culture Center and Museum 1”) readying themselves as the girls get into position on the rug — the camera zooms in and out on the group and the girls begin dancing, the men singing/drumming; about 16 minutes in, they stop for a bit and the camera pans over to the boxes and people standing about, then about a minute later the group begins dancing and singing/drumming again; the camera pans over to a groups of women and girls who are doing the corresponding back/forth dance and back to the main girl and her partner; this starting and stopping repeats; camera zooms onto the items on the rug and then back to the group, boys run around and play close by; about 26 and a half minutes in the girl’s dancing partner stops to help her fix a shoe or something and they begin dancing again after a bit; white still photographers stand nearby taking photos, video camera pans around to the group of responding dancers (the line of girls has grown a bit), the rows of food and back to the main two dancing.   


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