The 2026 Cama’i Dance Festival Honors Alexie Callerkuaq Anvil
In 2006, Alexie Callerkuaq Anvil began volunteering for the Cama’i Dance Festival as a school usher at age twenty. In 2015, he stepped into the role of team lead for the school ushers. He’s been in this role ever since, directing volunteers and festival-goers alike to help keep the festival safe for all attendees. Alexie began attending the Cama’i Dance Festival long before he began volunteering. In fact, he’s attended Cama’i in practically every role: as a dancer with his school, as an audience member, and for the last 19 years as an integral part of the volunteer team.
In his earliest memories of the festival, he recalls performances from dance groups that came to Bethel from all over the world, including from the lower 48, Japan, and China. At the festival, Alexie’s favorite moment is the Heart of the Drums, when drummers from all performing groups gather to beat their cauyaq in time with one another, starting low and slowly growing to a beat so loud, strong, and singular that you can feel it in your body and in the shake of the gymnasium floor.
“Once the drummers from all the groups come together and drum, you can feel the warmth, the happiness,” described Alexie. “It helps rejoice the body, and the mind and spirit.”
He also remembers watching the late Maryann Sundown of Scammon Bay perform dances like the mosquito dance. He says that the Cama’i Dance Festival serves as an important spiritual reminder of Elders and their wisdom: “That helps me keep going. I think of loved ones, the spirit life. You can feel it–their spirits, watching, going around. The high school is like a holy place for dancing.”
Being at the festival is like going back in time for Alexie, as he thinks of all the people who have been attending Cama’i for forty years. Being the team lead for the ushers offers its own special glimpse into the past too, as Alexie remembers being a kid running around Bethel Regional High School, being told to slow down and stop running.
“It reminds me of myself when I was that small, being mischievous,” he remembers. Now, Alexie is on the other side of that equation, stepping into the role of the adult who tells kids to stop running.
Above all, Alexie says, his top priority in volunteering for the festival is to provide a sense of safety. He thinks of everyone, from children to parents to Elders, and how he can best look out for all attendees as much as possible. It’s why he’s come back to the festival as a volunteer for twenty years, even when the work is hard. To him, the festival gathers joy, warmth, and connection under one roof, and his dedication to the festival contributes to that. It is with gratitude for this that the Cama’i Dance Festival is pleased to award Alexie Callerkuaq Anvil with Cama’i Honors at this year’s festival.
