Dallas Arcand wears many hats. He is a musician, public speaker, choreographer, and a dancer. Not just any dancer, but a world champion hoop dancer and Slave Lake students got to interact with him last week as he shared the magic of the hoop with them.
“The significance of the hoop is simple – it is a sacred circle,” he says. “In aboriginal culture, we emphasize the circle as the foundation of everything. Everything in life starts as a circle. The smallest form of life, a cell, is a circle. The sun is a circle, the moon is a circle, the planets go in circles.
“This is just my philosophy, but since I’ve become a champion, I am a lot more confident about what I say about the hoop dance. That’s what the hoop represents to me.”
Being a champion dancer also makes him a champion for young people, many of them aboriginal and disillusioned. He, too, got off to a terrible start in life and was kicked out of 25 schools during his adolescent years. He understands the confusion that plagues the youth of today.
“Most of family thought I was going to end up dead or in jail because I was so bad,” he says. “I just sort of fell into hoop dancing when I was young but I didn’t understand what it was all about. I was very confused because I was called a white man on the reservation and called an Indian in the city. I didn’t know who I was.”
According to Arcand, the hoop dance is also called the healing dance. It was that healing that allowed him to reconnect with his culture and his faith. He admits that the path he ended up taking is very different from the ones he envisioned.
“Every one of us has a gift,” he says. “I think the creator has blessed me with the gift of hoop dancing. But I never thought I would be a hoop dancer. I wanted to be a carnie (carnival worker) when I was younger. Then I wanted to be a mechanic and a businessman. When I found hoop dancing, I decided I wanted to be an educator.”
Hoop dancing also allowed Dallas to reconnect with some distant family relations. Cal Arcand accompanied Dallas last week and says it was the dancing what brought them together.
“I’m from Muskeg Lake, Sask. and he’s from Alexander First Nation but we didn’t meet until four years ago when we were performing together in Spain,” Cal says. “We were roommates and became friends. Through talking about and introducing our families, we found out we’re actually cousins!”
An accomplished dancer of 23 years, Cal is proud to helping Dallas raise cultural awareness in Slave Lake’s youth.
“When we visit different communities, we like to call them our extended families,” Cal says. “As a young person watching pow-wows, I thought they were really nice and colorful but (dance) can empower the kids if they let it. It’s gratifying to share with kids that are more unfortunate, especially in the northern communities where there seems to be a loss of identity.”
Teaching young people how to hoop dance teaches them to know themselves and where they come from. In aboriginal culture, all life is derived from Mother Earth. Dancing gives life back to Mother Earth and keeps the collective heart beating.
“The schools say you suck because you’re too bad,” Dallas says. “People say you suck because you’re not pretty enough or rich enough or because you’re not the same as everyone else. If you listen to that long enough, you start to become what they say you are. The message I’m trying to pass to them is ‘know yourself’. (Dancing) brought me closer to my culture and changed my life completely. I’m trying to connect them the same way.”
One young woman danced up a storm when the Arcand cousins dropped in at the Friendship Centre last week. Lakeside Outreach student Tanya Auger thinks very highly of hoop dancing and hopes that more people would open their minds and participate.
“I’ve been dancing since last year when I first met Dallas,” Auger says. “It means a lot to me. I’ve learned so much about our culture from Dallas teaching us the hoop and telling us stories. It can be really spiritual. If more people would really try it, they would like it. A lot.
“Some of the younger kids, some I’ve known personally, learned some hoop dancing to help stay out of trouble. I hope they keep on doing that.”

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