04/16/2026
With profound admiration, heartfelt aloha, and the deepest respect for the enduring brilliance of Indigenous storytelling, Ka Makani Kaili Koa extends its warmest and most gracious congratulations on the premiere of Why We Dance.
This moment is far more than the unveiling of a film. It is the honoring of memory, the safeguarding of sacred continuance, and the elevation of a story whose roots reach deep into land, ceremony, kinship, resistance, and renewal. Why We Dance recalls the 1923 letter ordering hundreds of Tribal Nations to stop dancing, an act of suppression aimed at gatherings that were never merely social but were, in truth, ceremonies of harvest, gratitude, preparation, reciprocity, and life itself. In response, the Meskwaki people refused to remain silent. They answered not with retreat, but with presence: by organizing one of the largest powwows of their time, a four-day celebration that drew thousands and affirmed that tradition itself could become resistance.
One hundred years later, the Meskwaki Annual Powwow continues. Families, friends, singers, dancers, and communities still gather. The heartbeat continues. The circle continues. The story continues.
It is in that spirit that we offer our sincerest congratulations to the gifted artists, cultural bearers, visionaries, and collaborators who brought this important work into being.
We extend our deepest respect and celebration to Director Oogie_Push— Meskwaki actor, storyteller, playwright, bag weaver, documentarian, 2025 MNHS Native Artist-in-Residence, director, editor, and creative visionary—whose gifts have helped shape a work of rare dignity, grace, and purpose. Oogie_Push is also known for NO SPECTATORS ALLOWED (2021), ZOMBIE BABY 3 (2023), and GHILLIE SUIT (2023). Through your vision, this film emerges not only as cinema, but as cultural testimony, ceremonial remembrance, and an offering to generations past, present, and yet to come.
We also honor the extraordinary creative team whose work, care, and commitment brought this story to the screen.
Jerod Pushetonequa- Meskwaki, Producer and Director of Culture and History, and Arena Director for the 2025 Circle of Nations: Honolulu Intertribal Experience, produced and hosted by Sky Brothers Collective, when he served as its CEO, comes from generations of powwow leaders. Jerod is someone who quietly leads, is ever willing to help others, and carries out the invisible work behind the scenes with humility and steadfastness. As Producer and Director of Culture and History of Why We Dance, Jerod is the reason this story came to be.
In late 2021, Jerod reached out to his cousin Oogie, asking for help creating a dance video for his crew, OSP Productions, and Oogie connected him with Ryan Stopera. When the pandemic brought live performance to a halt for dancers, the team pivoted to digital storytelling to continue educating others about Indigenous culture. Trusting relationships and following where the stories led them, they traveled from the Twin Cities to the Rosebud Reservation, the Meskwaki Settlement, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, and Mataxhi, Mexico. Five years later, that journey now arrives before the world as the feature-length documentary Why We Dance.
Bhavana Goparaju- Producer, Producer-Cinematographer-Editor, is known for IN THE BELLY OF A TIGER (2024), MAADATHY: AN UNFAIRY TALE (2019), and LOVE CHAOS KIN (2025). We honor the care, visual intelligence, and artistry brought through your work in helping shape this important film.
Ryan Christopher McGuire- Editor, is a North American-born Japanese and English storyteller and founder of the production company Cutters Studios Tokyo. Ryan attended high school in Switzerland and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo before returning home to sharpen his craft at Cutters Studios in Chicago. He later moved to Cutters Studios LA, where he captained branded film campaigns for Volvo, Cadillac, Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and the launch of the music video hosting service Vevo. In 2005, Ryan joined the Chicago White Sox as personal interpreter to Tadahito Iguchi, the first Japanese player to win a World Series. More recently, he has scripted and directed acclaimed commercial campaigns for ANA, Infiniti, BMW, Mini, Nike, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, YKK, Baycourt Club, and Hyatt Hotels. His remarkable body of work includes multiple Cannes Lions, numerous accolades at ADFEST and the Spikes Advertising Festival, a Hugo, a TED "Ads Worth Spreading" award, and a craft award at the 53rd ACC Awards in Japan. We honor the depth of storycraft and editorial mastery you bring to this project.
Ryan Stopera- Producer, Cinematographer, and Editor- is a mixed-race Chinese American, award-winning writer, director, photographer, producer, and consultant based in Minneapolis. A self-taught artist, Ryan began his career working alongside individuals experiencing homelessness, children and families, and foster care youth, as well as in program and affordable housing development. He began documenting protests after the 2008 recession, and his photography and films helped elevate narratives too often unseen in mainstream media, deepening his dedication to documentary and narrative storytelling.
Ryan's background in social work, community organizing, and relationship-building across communities makes collaboration central to his work, whether in filmmaking, program development, or creating spaces for connection through community events. Being in community, creating relationships, and sharing stories are at the very heart of what drives his work.
His work has been exhibited at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, SOO Visual Arts Center, Gamut Gallery, Indigenous Roots Cultural Art Center, Third Place Gallery, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. His films have screened across the country and around the world. He is the recipient of the 2018 Artist Neighborhood Partnership with CURA at the University of Minnesota, the 2019 Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership Grant, the 2021 and 2022 MSAB Artist Initiative Grants, the 2026 MSAB Creative Individuals Grant, and the 2024 MRAC Arts Impact Grant. He was also a 2020 Creative Community Fellow with National Art Strategies. His film SERENITY won the Audience Award at the 2023 Twin Cities Film Fest and Best Short Film at the 2024 Portugal Indie Film Festival.
Ryan serves as the Photography, Moving Image, and Film Advisor with Public Functionary, an artist-led space committed to dreaming and living in a world where multifaceted identities are celebrated and centered, and where creative production is reparative and generous. He is also the Director of Development and Partnerships with Cinefilmu, an immersive gathering and celebration for QTBIPOC film in Minnesota; a mentor for Film Sparks at Mama Papaya, an immigrant-led nonprofit dedicated to nurturing and empowering underrepresented filmmakers and storytellers in Minnesota; the founder and manager of the Creating Change Gallery at Graves Foundation, a fellowship for emerging artists in Minneapolis; the secretary of the board of directors of African American Survivor Services, a nonprofit working with individuals where they are, on the street, to assess, empower, advocate, and mobilize individuals, families, and communities; and the Co-Founder of KangLi Collaborative with Kevin Vollmers, a consulting firm rooted in an ethos of creating abundance from loss. Ryan's diverse experience helps him support nonprofits and small businesses with analysis, development, strategy, and growth. He is also known for WHY WE DANCE (2026), FORMS OF BALANCE (2026), and THE ENDLESS SLEEPOVER (2021).
Gunner Jules-Composer is a Sicangu Lakota alternative R&B artist from the Rosebud Rez, recognized for his distinct voice, emotive lyrics, and compelling melodies. As a singer, songwriter, and producer, he blends alternative R&B with contemporary production, creating music that explores love, relationships, and life's complexities with both emotional depth and thoughtful rhythm. Since releasing his debut singles in 2019 and his first EP in 2022, Gunner has performed on national and international stages, with his music available across major streaming platforms. Deeply moved by the opportunities music has afforded him, he remains committed to using his art as a vehicle for change, community building, and the inspiration of future generations. We honor the emotional landscape your music brings to this story.
We are equally proud to recognize the principal cast whose presence and ʻike animate this film across lands, waters, nations, and generations.
Canku OneStar-Sigangu/Oglala Lakota, Oneida, and Seneca, is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe whose Men's Fancy War Dance, cultural advocacy, and commitment to Indigenous education reflect the living strength and elegance of Native tradition. He is also known for SKINS (2002), TRIBAL LAW & ORDER (2012), and WHY WE DANCE (2026). His presence in this work reflects not only performance but the embodied continuity of culture.
Oogie_Push- in addition to directing this remarkable work, also appears among the principal cast, further underscoring the intimate relationship between maker and story, vision and responsibility, artistry and accountability.
Pualeilani Paiea Kamahoahoa- Kanaka Maoli, Chief Operating Officer and Poʻo Kumu of Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa, Hawaiʻi, is recognized with immense pride. Her presence in this work is deeply meaningful to our organization and to our broader lāhui. We are honored to see her voice, cultural grounding, and ʻike represented within this interwoven story of Indigenous perseverance and continuity.
Loa Miles Simoes- Meskwaki and Executive Director of Sky Brothers Collective at the time of filming, former Honolulu Intertribal Powwow Chair hosted by Oahu Intertribal Council, Hawaiʻi, is likewise honored with affection and respect. Her presence affirms the enduring relationships between communities and the living pathways of cultural exchange, remembrance, and solidarity.
Sergio Nochtzin Quiroz- Tlamakaze, Co-founder and Executive Cultural Architect of Indigenous Roots Cultural Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, brings to this work the strength of cultural architecture, community grounding, and sacred responsibility.
Mary Anne Ligeralde Quiroz, a Filipina and Co-founder and Executive Director of Indigenous Roots Cultural Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, is also recognized with deep admiration. Her presence in this work reflects the strength of Indigenous and diasporic solidarity, leadership, artistry, and care.
And here in Hawaiʻi, this premiere arrives in especially resonant company, as the 63rd Annual Merrie Monarch Festival has just concluded in Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island. Merrie Monarch continues to honor the legacy of Mōʻī David Kalākaua, whose vision helped inspire the perpetuation of Hawaiian traditions, native language, and arts. As a week-long celebration, it uplifts an internationally acclaimed hula competition, an invitational Hawaiian arts fair, hula presentations, and the grand parade through Hilo town. In doing so, it continues to promulgate hula not as mere spectacle, but as living inheritance: as language, discipline, genealogy, ceremony, artistry, and cultural kuleana carried from kumu to haumāna, from hālau to community, and from Hawaiʻi to the wider world.
Year after year, Merrie Monarch helps sustain and elevate the excellence of hula, strengthens the visibility of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, uplifts the work of kumu hula and their hālau, and reminds audiences both here in Hawaiʻi and across the world that Hawaiian culture is not static, ornamental, or confined to memory; it is living, practiced, disciplined, and profoundly alive. In that sense, its conclusion in Hilo offers a beautiful parallel to Why We Dance: both stand as affirmations that when an Indigenous people continue to dance, they continue to remember, to teach, to gather, to resist erasure, and to carry ancestral knowledge forward in living form.
As beautifully reflected through the film's presentation, Why We Dance is not merely a documentary. It is an offering of remembrance. It is an affirmation of continuity. It is a declaration that Indigenous dance is not decorative, nor incidental, nor disposable. It is genealogy in motion. It is a memory carried by the body (ike kupuna). It is protocol, story, prayer, resistance, renewal, and belonging. It is a bridge between body and earth, anger and hope, memory and future. It is where the ancestors are honored and where future generations are called home.
For us in Hawaiʻi, and for Indigenous peoples throughout the world, this truth resonates deeply. We know that cultural practice is not a relic. It is not an artifact to be observed from a distance. It is living knowledge. It is a sacred responsibility (kuleana). It is the beating heart of a people who continue, despite erasure, despite misunderstanding, despite suppression, despite the long shadows of historical and ongoing violence.
We are especially moved by the breadth of homelands and communities carried within this film from the Rosebud Reservation and the Meskwaki Settlement to the Twin Cities, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, and Mataxhi, Mexico. In this, the film reminds us that while our peoples are distinct, our struggles, our survival, and our commitments to cultural perpetuation often speak to one another across vast geographies. Through song, dance, regalia, kinship, and story, Why We Dance becomes both a documentary and a celebration, an enduring testimony to belonging.
To Director Oogie_Push, to Jerod Pushetonequa, Bhavana Goparaju, Ryan Christopher McGuire, Ryan Stopera, Gunner Jules, and to the entire cast, crew, and extended ʻohana of Why We Dance: please receive our sincerest and most joyful congratulations on this meaningful premiere.
May this film travel far.
May it be received with honor.
May it educate with integrity.
May it stir hearts with gentleness and truth.
May it stand as a lasting tribute to the brilliance, resilience, and sacred continuance of Indigenous life.
And may all who encounter it come away with a deeper understanding that when Indigenous peoples dance, we do not merely perform
we remember,
we resist,
we renew,
and we continue.
E ola ka hula. E ola ka mele. E ola ka moʻomeheu ʻōiwi. E ola mau ka poʻe e kūpaʻa ana no ka hoʻomau ʻana i nā hana hoʻoilina a nā kūpuna.
Long live the dance. Long live the song. Long live Indigenous culture. Long live those who stand steadfast in carrying forward the treasured practices of the ancestors.
US Premiere Director Oogie_Push and Special Guests Attending. In 1923 the US government issued a ban on Tribal Nation dancing, declaring powwows “unproductive gatherings.” Ignoring the social, political and spiritual effect of this ceremony, the government was using this ban as a tool of oppress...
