Adrian Matthias Stevens (Northern Ute, Shoshone-Bannock, and San Carlos Apache) and Sean Snyder (Navajo and Southern Ute) are two Indigenous dancers who have been together for seven years. The Two-Spirit couple—based outside of Las Vegas, Nevada—often perform in couple competitions at powwows; they will dance as a same-sex pair, and they often match their regalia while doing so.
Within North American Indigenous communities, Two-Spirit refers to people who possess both masculine and feminine spirits, but it can also be used to represent LGBTQ+ Indigenous people more broadly.
We first came across the couple when they were featured in Vogue Magazine last summer, and were blown away about how dancing together had so radically changed their lives and those of people around them.
This new set of photographs of them are by Tomas Karmelo Amaya for CNN Style and so need to be shared. Stevens and Snyder are dressed in matching regalia — each embellished with their own handmade beadwork and they talk about their potential in continuing to use so-called ‘sweetheart dances’ to rewrite the rules of what a powwow dancer can be.
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Labels: 2021, dancers, indignous, Two Spirit
