Images celebrating the vibrant youth of modern Native American culture

As soon as you get out of the car, you hear it: the singing and drumming coming from the forest. Brilliant hues shimmer and flicker through the woods. You crest the ridge, and the pow-wow is revealed. 

The Woodland Bowl is a natural amphitheater on the Menominee Indian Reservation in central Wisconsin, and each year a national pow-wow gathers hundreds of participants in a competition that brings together many different tribes from across the U.S and Canada. Eight different drum circles and singers perform music for the dancing. The vibrant intensity of the culture is overwhelming; the youth in particular are intensely engaged and focused.

I feel privileged to have been allowed to capture the dancers in such idyllic conditions. The daylight was particularly pure and is very much a part of what makes these images so vibrant. Printed on mid-gloss white aluminum, the vivid colors and detail help to draw the focus where it belongs: to the intense gaze of those who not only embrace their heritage and culture, but do so as a means to defend it.