The longest day of the 2024 Cama-i Dance Festival was packed with performances, festival traditions, and hundreds of servings of salmon and moose.
Elementary school dance groups from Bethel schools – Mikelnguut Elitnaurviat, Ayaprun Elitnaurvik and Gladys Jung – took to the stage on Saturday (March 16) for the first time this Cama-i.
Saturday’s lineup included almost all of the groups from the first day of the festival, plus Bethel Filipino Community Dancers, Flowzone Break Dancers from Anchorage, Upallret, and the Delta Illusion Dance Company.
Volunteers served up hundreds of pounds of salmon, moose, whitefish, dryfish, muktuk and akutaq at the Native Foods Dinner in the Bethel Regional High School cafeteria.
And after a day of interviews, a photo shoot, and serving Elders at dinner, Tatiana Taanka Korthuis from Bethel was crowned 2024 Miss Cama-i.
“I'm very excited. I'm honored,” Korthuis said, wearing her maroon sash and a new nasqurrun (dance headdress) shortly after being crowned Miss Cama-i. “I'd like to thank my family. I'd like to thank Kelsey [Wallace] for putting it together and everybody who made this happen.”
Korthuis will travel to the World Eskimo Indian Olympics in Fairbanks in July to represent the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Cama-i 2024 is two-thirds done, but there’s still plenty of yuraq to come: Doors open for the last day of Cama-i at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday (March 17). Attendees can expect more than a dozen dance performances, as well as the Qaspeq Parade.
