Dance of Life, Circle of Life: Ethnic Revival in the Sleeping Lands of Siberia

The Sakha of northeastern Siberia have, through their history, celebrated the arrival of summer with the yhyakh kymys fesitval. The ohyokhai circle dance, an intergral part of that festival, emerges in contemporary times as the Sakhas’ major ethnic voice. This lecture presents fieldwork in both slide and soundtrack to show the festival in its contemporary context. Concurrently, the presentation portrays the environmental challenges the Sakha face in preserving not only their ethnic traditions but their people. The field site is the Viliui River basin regions of the western Sakha Republic.