Posted By Toyacoyah Brown Last Updated on: October 6th, 2014

A light-hearted dance battle broke at “Tekcno Pow Wow III” between three dance troupes. Seen in this video are members of the Ko Ngati Hiona Maori Culture Group of Salt Lake City, UT, Rocky Mountain American Indian Dance Group of Denver, CO and The Soul Mechanics Krew of Colorado Springs, CO. The event took place at the University of Wyoming this past Spring and the University of Wyoming Television crew was there to film the event.

Take a look below and tell me who you think won the dance battle!

For a little more background and how the event came about, read more from the University of Wyoming press release:

“’Tekcno Pow Wow III’ is an audience-participatory, multimedia, group performance art piece,” says Spang. “It’s a cultural mashup that brings together multiple dance forms including powwow dancing and break dancing, along with a powwow drum and a DJ, to explore how cultures interact and influence each other in the realm of creative expression.” By creating a charged atmosphere that combines the live event essence of powwow and hip-hop/rave with performance art and video projection, Spang challenges dancers and audience members alike to “dance a mile in each other’s moccasins, sneakers, ballet slippers, or whatever the case may be” and, in so doing, gain valuable insight into one another’s lived cultural experiences. He says the program challenges the notion that some cultures, in particular Native American cultures, are static. “Everyone feels they know who native peoples are, and yet they continually put us in one time period,” Spang says. “You never hear ‘Indian’ and ‘future’ mentioned in the same sentence.” Spang holds an MFA in sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Montana College in Billings. He has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and at Montana State University in Billings. Funding from the Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowment, awarded to the American Indian Studies Program, sponsors Spang’s residency at UW. A grant from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund will partially sponsor the Tekcno Pow Wow.

I hope there will be more Tekcno Pow Wow's in the future. It would be great if it was a touring event!

About Toyacoyah Brown Toyacoyah Brown is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, currently living in Chicago. She received her B.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and an M.A. in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. When she's not scouring the Internet for fun things to share with PowWows.com readers you can find her digging for vinyl in her local record store or curling up with a good book.

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