{"id":141026,"date":"2023-02-15T15:23:37","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T20:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=141026"},"modified":"2023-02-15T15:23:37","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T20:23:37","slug":"laxgaltsap-culture-dancers-kickoff-63rd-all-native-basketball-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/laxgaltsap-culture-dancers-kickoff-63rd-all-native-basketball-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Laxgalts&#8217;ap Culture Dancers kickoff 63rd All Native Basketball Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Editor's Note: CFNR is a 2023 sponsor of the All Native Basketball Tournament.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 63rd annual <a href=\"https:\/\/anbt.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">All Native Basketball Tournament<\/a> is officially underway following the culture filled opening ceremony. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While games started on Feb. 11, the opening ceremony marked the beginning of the event on Feb. 12.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annually, teams from all over British Columbia, and even from as far as Hydaburg, Alaska, travel to Prince Rupert to compete for their communities at the sports event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During the opening ceremony, the Laxgalts\u2019ap Culture Dancers were asked to perform a variety of songs and dances to welcome not only the players but the spectators as well.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The culture dancers were preceded by the Prince Rupert chiefs and matriarchs, who made their way around the gym to welcome the spectators to their territory.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over 150 dancers then entered the gymnasium drumming, singing, and dancing.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All 55 teams then walked in, organized by community, some performing the traditional dance of their tribe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During the speeches that followed, both the Nisga\u2019a and Nuxalk Nations' efforts to repatriate their stolen totem poles were mentioned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tournament was started in 1959, just eight years after the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca\/en\/article\/potlatch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">potlatch ban<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was lifted in 1951, so participating in cultural practices, such as the tribal dance, was a big draw for many.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tribal dance portion of the night saw hundreds of participants get up after hearing their tribe called to dance.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_141037\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-141037\" class=\"wp-image-141037 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-500x281.jpeg\" alt=\"Large gathering of people dancing in the centre of a basketball court\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-500x281.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-1536x865.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-2048x1153.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Tribal-Dance-320x180.jpeg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-141037\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Traditional tribal dance had hundreds of people out of their seats. Photo by Morgyn Budden (CFNR).<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\"You wanna know one of the reasons why we sing that song? Because it\u2019s vitally important for some of us to understand what we call our 'ayuuk' (laws), and a big part of our laws is dance,\u201d dance group representative Andrew Robinson explained afterward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After 63 years, the opening ceremony is now the biggest night of the tournament, with people coming from surrounding communities specifically for the event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The All Native Basketball Tournament will run until Feb. 18 at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre in Prince Rupert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Listen to the CFNR story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor&#8217;s Note: CFNR is a 2023 sponsor of the All Native Basketball Tournament.\u00a0 The 63rd annual All Native Basketball Tournament is officially underway following the culture filled opening ceremony. While games started on Feb. 11, the opening ceremony marked the beginning of the event on Feb. 12.\u00a0 Annually, teams from all over British Columbia, and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":141033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,16830,204],"tags":[11484,11483,5026,23494,3456],"radio":[13054],"origine":[280,13049,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141026"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141079,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141026\/revisions\/141079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141026"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=141026"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=141026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}