JOHN KOKEOK

“I had all these recordings of dance groups from the '90’s on old VHS tapes. I don’t know who recorded them on those old VHS tapes. I started watching them and getting into it. When Carter (his son) was two years old, I would go home on my lunch break, and he would be watching his cartoons. I got tired of them and started putting in those tapes and he would watch them. Then soon, everyday when I got home from work, I would ask him, ‘what do you want to watch?’ and he would want to watch those tapes. He is 10 now.
Our dance group in town kind of faded away, [when the] elders passed away. Mary, Kate’s sister (and John’s sister in law), came back to town. She is a teacher too [like my wife Kate]. She got [the Shishmaref Dance Group] back together and that’s when I joined. I am a part of the Shishmaref Drummers. We have all these young kids now, I think they will take over eventually. There are about 10-12 kids in our group now.”— John Kokeok is Inupiaq and lives in Shishmaref, Alaska.