Festival celebrates Indigenous cultures through art forms once banned

Members of the Dancers of Damelahamid, an Indigenous dance company, perform during the Coastal Dance Festival at the Museum of Anthropology, in Vancouver, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press)

VANCOUVER — Clad in colourful regalia and intricate masks, the Dancers of Damelahamid perform an art form that was once outlawed in Canada.

Now, 75 years after the end of the potlatch ban that forbade Indigenous cultural and artistic expression, the group is among dozens of Indigenous performers taking part in a festival that celebrates their artistry through stories, song and dance.

The 19th annual Coastal Dance Festival opened at the Anvil Centre in New Westminster on Tuesday and continues at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver until Sunday, featuring performers from across B.C., as well as international artists from as far as Norway.

“A lot of the work just really comes from the hearts of the artists and the communities,” said festival director Margaret Grenier, who is also the executive and artistic director for Dancers of Damelahamid.

From Tsimshian mask dancing to Sami yoiking — a form of traditional singing — Indigenous art is at the forefront of the festival.

Besides sharing their craft with audiences, the performers are also sustaining songs and dances that have been carried through generations.

The festival is “for the purpose of really expressing identity, expressing gratitude to the generations that worked really hard to revitalize these practices and the hope that we have for our young people to be able to carry it forward,” Grenier said.

It’s a family affair for many of the performers, some of whom grew up dancing in the festival as children and are now embarking on their own creative careers as adults.

One of them is Grenier’s daughter, Raven Grenier, who started dancing with her mother’s company at the age of six. Now 28, she dances, sings and composes songs for the group in the Gitxsan language.

She composed a song for a mountain goat transformation mask dance to be performed during the festival. Her father carved the mask and its inner part features a Chilkat weaving design, made using goat wool.

The masks and regalia worn by the dancers help bring the performances to life, she added.

“They carry a different presence, because there’s all of that energy going into creating that work for that one specific thing,” she said. “It really carries the performance and it really is a beautiful thing to be a part of.”

Both women mentioned the potlatch ban when speaking about the importance of revitalizing Indigenous cultures through the festival. They said performing at the Museum of Anthropology — when many museums contain items collected from Indigenous communities without consent — is a way to reclaim the space.

Bringing their regalia, songs and stories into the museum is “part of the healing” that will allow the items within the museum to be “practised again and not just preserved,” Margaret Grenier said.

“There’s a lot of weighted energy there, but it’s always so beautiful to see all of the different nations perform there and reclaim their strong living presence,” Raven Grenier said, adding she wants to show audiences Indigenous cultures still thrive in the present.

Margaret Grenier said inviting dancers and singers from Northern B.C., Yukon and Norway is an opportunity for the Indigenous artists to learn from communities with similar histories and values.

“It becomes an opportunity for us to sort of step out from the isolation that could happen in these small pockets and bring us together and really nurture one another, by celebrating in what we’ve all worked really hard to bring forward in these practices,” she said.

It’s also an opportunity to connect with audiences through songs and stories, and carry those stories forward to the next generation, she said.

“You can feel that it’s not just a gathering of people, it’s a gathering of stories, it’s a gathering of the spirit of all of what the stories carry.”

This report by Marissa Birnie of The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2026.