Tony Duncan has performed at many different places around the United States, including the White house for former first lady Barbara Bush.
Duncan is known for hoop dancing, a Native American style of dance in which performers use hoops and their own bodies to form the shapes of different animals.
He is also known for his band, Estun-Bah, which mixes contemporary and traditional Native American music.
Even though the band and Duncan are known across the nation, not many people came to the band’s performance at ASU’s Health and Innovation Building on the Downtown campus Wednesday evening.
Estun Bah Hoop Dancer from The State Press on Vimeo.
The band was originally scheduled to perform Sept. 13 on the Downtown campus, but the event was cancelled because of rain.
“I know the first performance was postponed due to the rain,” Duncan said. “So I know that changed up a lot of schedules.”
But the small audience did not stop Duncan from performing.
“Music and dance is always alive no matter how many people are out there,” Duncan said.
Duncan feels that when he performs it is an opportunity to teach people about the Native American culture.
“Definitely as a performer we don’t try to just entertain many different audiences, but we also try to inform and educate many different people about Native people,” Duncan said.
Duncan said it is important to educate people about Native Americans because of the “Hollywood” stereotypes that many people see.
The event was part of Project Humanities, a University-wide initiative that brings students and faculty together through humanities-centered activities and events.
The initiative’s events are usually lectures that focus on diversity topics.
Mirna Latouff, Project Humanities organizer for the Downtown School of Letters and Sciences, said instead of just holding lectures they are trying to use performances to show the diversity of Arizona.
“We wanted to show the different communities,” Latouff said.
Journalism freshmen Corey Gilmore, the one student who came to the event, said the performance was interesting because of Duncan’s hoop dancing.
“I thought it was actually cool,” Gilmore said. “Like I am not a fan of this type of music that much … but the fact that they mixed with contemporary too and they had a lot of guitar stuff actually made it really interesting to listen to.”
Going into the event Gilmore said he didn’t know what to expect. He only attended the event to receive extra credit for class.
“If I would have known what it was I would have invited more friends,” Gilmore said.
Reach the reporter at shurst2@asu.edu
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