Competition Dancing

[Madison4]

Hi there, I'm a comp. dancer and travel a lot, visit many PW's and I realized that a lot of those so-called "traditional" PW's are not even hosted by Natives yet they say it's a traditional PW and they "allow" those who are not enrolled (do not have a CDIB Card) to compete anyhow. As a matter a fact many of those so-called Dancers are not even Native at all. My question would be how is it with Comp. PW's like GON....I know that some who do not have their CDIB and are not even Native are going to compete at this year's GON. Did GON drop their rules and regulations OR do those so-called dancers have some sort of "connections" and getting in without the CDIB? If so, this is very upsetting. If it's true that non-natives are allowed to compete at a Gathering like GON I'll certainly not be a part of this any longer. I'd certainly appreciate if somebody could give me some closure on this soon. Thanks.

[Dakota Sandz]

Ive never been to a powwow where you actually have to bust out your treaty card, or in you americans case, a blood quantum card (or whatever those things are).
Non natives at powwows happen. and as far as non natives hosting powwows, Yup GON is NOT put on by a native, and there is ALOT of powwows like college, university powwows as well that are NOT put on by natives, They may have natives on committee, but the "main man" is usualy not.
You have your opinions and I have mine, but if a native walks into a ballroom full of white people and wants to dance, should the white people get up and leave and say they will never go back there because a native is there dancing "no native" dancing?
Just showing the flipside of what you typed....
For me, as long as non native people respect the "ways" I have no problem with it...besides, most of the so called white people at powwows dancing (that are good at it) happen to be legit natives. There are ALOT of light skinned ndn's out there.