ABOUT THIS PODCAST: Ria Thundercloud, of the Sandia Pueblo and Ho-Chunk Nations, is a young professional dancer. Representing various dance mediums, from traditional to classical, she vocalizes her journey within self-expression. She was first welcomed into the dance circle at the age of four-years-old with a pow wow initiation. At that age she also began dancing the traditional Pueblo style and by thirteen, after watching a professional dancer on stage, was inspired to study jazz, ballet and classical dance. She regards the differences in her tribal practices, describing the Pueblo (a high desert people) as being “placed-based Natives,” and the Ho-Chunk as “woodland and nomadic Natives". It is important for her to embody both of these tribes in separate energies, working to not “intersect” them, for both tribes are on their “own paths". Her view on dance as “a transforming universal language” is quite beautiful, as she reminds us that it takes intuition, connection to spirit, and “intention to earth,” to break the stereotypes that surround tribal nation.
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