Dance: The Five Moons

Read full transcriptYvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin, and sisters Maria and Marjorie Tallchief all rose to prominence as ballerinas in the mid-1900s. They also all happened to be Native Americans from the state of Oklahoma, born in the 1920s. Chouteau was Shawnee, the Tallchief sisters were Osage, Hightower was Choctaw and Larkin was Peoria and Shawnee.While each of the women has been recognised with various individual honors, they are also commemorated as a group. A ballet called The Four Moons was created for the Oklahoma Indian Ballerina Festival in 1967, with four solos that each evoke the different tribal backgrounds of the dancers, with a single Osage solo honoring the Tallchief sisters. The work is set to music by Louis Ballard, a Quapaw-Cherokee composer and fellow Oklahoman. A mural called Flight of Spirit depicts the five women in the Oklahoma State Capitol Rotunda in Oklahoma City, painted by Chickasaw artist Mike Larsen, and sculptures of the dancers grace the grounds of the Tulsa Historical Society.