A dozen or more Bering Straight School District villages sent youth representatives to the 9th Annual Stebbins Dance Festival in January. Dancers from all over Western Alaska gathered in the Norton Sound village, traveling from Elim, Scammon Bay, Savoonga, St. Michael, Unalakleet and other locations. Hundreds of kids and chaperones descended upon the 600-resident village filling its all-ages school to the utmost capacity. For two days and two nights, Stebbins pulsated to the steady beat of Yupik and Inupiaq skin drums while youth, adults and elders danced and danced.

Of the immense and diverse talent concentrated in the Stebbins school gym during the festival, the Brevig Mission dancers were standouts. Three boys and three girls danced for Brevig flanked by two male drummers who sang their Eskimo songs loud and clear. But what they may have lacked in numbers they made up for in raw passion. The Brevig Mission dancers were captivating: Their rhythm steady, their faces serene, their movements deliberate and precise.

Their leader, Robert Tokianna, was proud of his group. He beamed when other dancers guess his group was more seasoned than they were. The Brevig Mission dancers have been practicing together for less than a year, ever since Tokianna became the community-based suicide prevention coordinator for the local Traditional Council.

Tokianna says he started the Brevig Mission group because he loves Eskimo dancing so much. Once it got going, he says, it took off. His dancers practice several times per week but sometimes that’s not enough. Tokianna says dancers often approach him to ask if he’ll hold extra practices. Often their practice gym is filled to maximum capacity.

Traditional Native dances from Brevig Mission were lost, so Tokianna had to be resourceful in order to learn dances and songs. He learned dances from all over the region by watching videotaped performances from Wales, St. Lawrence Island and others. He would watch a few frames of tape, pause it, figure out the words, moves and song and memorize the information. Then he taught the dances to the kids in his dance group.

Tokianna’s successful resurrection of forgotten culture may be what’s behind the visceral freshness of the Brevig Mission dancers. Their dancing transcends the physical, elevating their performances to a deeply personal, almost spiritual level.

“Elders say it lifts up your spirit,” Robert Tokianna says of Eskimo dancing. “When you dance and when you sing, if you ever try it, you’ll feel happy no matter what… You can’t explain it, but you can feel it. It’s like a natural high.”

Tokianna is building assets in the youth who dance with him in his village. At the Stebbins Dance Festival, his dancers were the first to arrive at events and the last to leave. They came together after the festivities ended and danced some more until the time came for lights to be turned out.

“I thought I was doing Eskimo dancing because I like doing it. I didn’t think it was a prevention activity,” said Tokianna. “I just realize, Eskimo dancing is prevention. With lifting up your spirit, [kids] will have more positive thoughts. With more positive thoughts, they won’t think of suicide as much. If they don’t think of suicide, the suicide rate will go down.”

Robert Tokianna has been the Brevig Mission Traditional Council’s community-based suicide prevention coordinator for less than a year. He’s 20-years-old.