My friend Monica heard about a powwow happening a few blocks from my apartment and brought me along. As Gothamist reported, the party on Degraw Street marked a 100th birthday — Gloria Miguel’s — and, with it, the 50th anniversary of Spiderwoman Theater, the Native feminist theater company she co-founded with her sisters in 1976, still running today. A pow wow is hard to hold in New York, with no open fields or lodges the way other places have; this one took over a single block instead.
I was only there briefly, but long enough to take some of it in. Dancers moved in a circle, regalia bright with color, their steps falling in time with the drum in a way that felt less like performance than something older — people, music, and ground all moving together. Musicians played traditional instruments off to the side, keeping the rhythm the dancers followed. Gloria was wheeled into the center of it rather than set off to the side, a cake brought out in her honor.
Neighbors filled in around the edges — folding tables and umbrellas set up against the sun, a couple of vendors selling ceramics and small handmade goods. It was a clear, warm afternoon, the kind that made the whole block feel, for a few hours, like somewhere else entirely.
