April 15, 2009
Dance Away Diabetes debuted at the Camai Dance festival last month. From left: Agnes Phillip, Vang Ramp, Melanie Boyer, BJ Putnam, Barb Hill, Annette Coyle, Lorainne Gill, not pictured Kimberly Jung, Laurie Smith, Debbie Michael and Gabe Brink.
Dance Away Diabetes
"Pamyua!" some of the elders shouted at the 16th Annual Tribal Gathering... and the dance continued, "...Wake up in the morning, wake up in the morning, eat healthy foods, eat healthy foods, then... Move it! Move it! Move it, move it..."
The Diabetes Prevention & Control Program, along with supporters from YKHC and the Community of Bethel got together to remind everyone that "people have the power to prevent diabetes."
It started last year, as a kind of joke with Diabetes Educators Kit Eischen and Annette Coyle. They said that they should create a diabetes dance...they would fly into a village (their arms stretched out on their sides mimicking an airplane), and go looking for people to screen (shading their eyes with their hand) and checking people's blood glucose levels (by imitating finger pokes). From there the idea grew. I suggested making hoods and skirts on the diabetes t-shirts for our outfits. I also suggested making dance fans out of blood glucose monitors and strips, but we didn't have enough time to make the dance fans.
Then, about the beginning of February, the diabetes team decided to dance at the 2009 Camai Dance Festival and created a song. The original song for the dance included the chorus, "Eat right, stay active, and get screened." Then, after meeting with Nita Rearden, the song morphed into what it is now with the chorus, "Wake up in the morning, eat healthy foods, then move it! Move it!"
We solicited dancers from the Bethel Community. Melanie Boyer, Barb Hill, Agnes Phillips, Vang Ramp, and Gabriel Brink joined the Diabetes Prevention and Control program team to help "Dance Away Diabetes." The group practiced every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during their lunch breaks until the week of Camai when they practiced every day. YKHC's Dance Away Diabetes group had two performances at the 2009 Camai Dance Festival and one during YKHC's Tribal Gathering, where we were honored with a "Pamyua!"
We will be refining the dance to include movements from the spoken parts and performing again at the Diabetes Conference in Anchorage in December. We are working with the Public Relations Department to get the Yup'ik and English versions of video clips uploaded to our Diabetes Website at www.ykhc.org/diabetes. We're also getting copies made to show in our presentations to the schools and/or communities. We're thinking of making all or portions of the song into the introduction to our monthly radio show.
