Sealaska Heritage Institute
CELEBRATION | HERITAGE FORWARD
SHI's Bent Wood Box of Celebrations
WELCOME TO CELEBRATION: 2024: June 5-8
In 1982, the fledgling Native nonprofit Sealaska Heritage Institute held a dance-and-culture festival to celebrate the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. At the time, Native people were emerging from a long period of cultural oppression by Westerners, and they worried that young people weren’t learning their ancient songs and dances. A couple of hundred Native people gathered in Juneau for the event, called Celebration. They could not have imagined then that Celebration would spark a movement across the region — a renaissance of Native culture that prompted people largely unfamiliar with their heritage to learn their ancestral songs and dances and to make regalia for future Celebrations.
Today, Celebration is one of the largest cultural events in the state, drawing thousands of people to the four-day festival. It is the largest gathering of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people in the world. It has grown to include associated events, including a Juried Art Show and Competition, a Juried Youth Art Exhibit, a Toddler Regalia Review, an Indigenous Fashion Show, a Native Artist Market, and Native food contests. The biennial event is schedule in early June every even year in Juneau. Everyone is welcome to attend.
ORIGIN OF CELEBRATION
ADAPTING & REVITALIZING ALASKAN NATIVE CULTURES
Celebration is a new tradition. During earlier times, a clan from one moiety would always host a clan from the other moiety. An Eagle clan, for example, might host a Raven clan and, then, the reverse would occur in order that balance, reciprocity, and respect be maintained. Those who danced together as either hosts or guests were from one clan, one side. Now, clan members have scattered in order to pursue careers and personal interests, and the formal system of reciprocal obligation has become more difficult to maintain although traditional ceremonies are still a vital part of Northwest Coast culture. At Celebration, some clan members still gather as single-clan Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian dance groups but most groups at Celebration represent combinations of many clans.
As times have changed, the peoples of the Northwest Coast have adopted revitalized festival traditions while continuing to maintain the old. Although Celebration follows the pattern of a traditional ceremonial it is not a potlatch or memorial party. Adoptions, name giving, memorial services, and other events that are a proper part of those traditional gatherings are not part of Celebration and are observed at other times.
Celebration Information & Details
Sealaska Heritage will hold an in-person Celebration in Juneau from June 5-8 in 2024. The lead dance group will be Dakhká Khwáan Dancers (People of the Inland). Please do visit the links below for more information and details.
For four days every other June, the streets of Juneau fill with Native people of all ages dressed in the signature regalia of clans from throughout Southeast Alaska and beyond. There is traditional song and dance. Arts and crafts. Food. And people speaking local Native languages. This is Celebration, our biennial festival of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures.
Celebration is one of the largest gatherings of Southeast Alaska Native peoples and is the second-largest event sponsored by Alaska Natives in the State of Alaska. The event draws about 5,000 people, including more than 2,000 dancers. Thousands more watch the event online. A 2012 study showed each Celebration generates an estimated economic impact of $2,000,000.