Acosia Red Elk

Acosia[1] Red Elk (born 1980) is a jingle dress dancer from the Umatilla people of Oregon. A descendant of Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, she did not become interested in dancing until she was 16, when she taught herself to dance from videos of other jingle dancers. Red Elk began dancing professionally in 1998 with her then-husband, Paris Leighton, visiting up to 50 pow wows a year for ten years.[2]

Acosia Red Elk
Born
Young Swan Rising From the Water

1980 (age 40–41)
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Pendleton, Oregon, U.S.
NationalityNative American
CitizenshipUnited States
OccupationDancer
Years active1998-present
DancesJingle dancer

From 2004 to 2008, she won five world championships at the Gathering of Nations; she won again in 2011, 2014, and the 2015 competition, which she decided to enter at the last minute and had to sew a dress for the day before the competition.[3] In 2005, she also won the Head Woman Dancer title; in 2014, having entered 8 competitions, she won all of them.[2] She performed in Supaman's video for the song Why?, having met him on the pow wow circuit.[4]

In 2020, she appeared in the music video for the Portugal. The Man and "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Who's Gonna Stop Me."[5]

References
  1. "Acosia" means "Young Swan Rising From the Water" in the Yakama language
  2. Mounts, John. "Young Swan Rising From the Water". 1859.
  3. Aney, Kathy. "Pendleton jingle dancer Red Elk wins eighth world title". East Oregonian.
  4. Schilling, Vincent. "Check out Supaman's "Why" featuring Jingle Dance Champion Acosia Red Elk".
  5. Martoccio, Angie (12 October 2020). "Portugal. the Man, 'Weird Al' Yankovic Team Up for 'Who's Gonna Stop Me'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 12 October 2020.


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