- [Narrator] If you drive through South Dakota long enough, you'll come across a beautiful statue representing a fancy shawl dancer.

(energetic percussive music) But where did it come from?

Who better to ask than a family with four generations of fancy shawl dancers?

Madonna Thunder Hawk, who passed it on to her daughter, Marcella Gilbert, who passed it on to her daughter, Chouette Umani, who are all passing it on to Chouette's two oldest, Hanhepi and Anpo.

(announcer speaking indistinctly) (Anpo ululating) (Madonna laughs) - That's a pretty story, isn't it?

(cameraman laughing) A legend.

Ah.

That's just, to me, that's funny.

- What?

What did you say?

(laughs) Because, you know, the shawl dance is not that old.

I mean, it began in my lifetime.

People who don't know about us wanna hear the fantastic and the super sacred, but it's crap.

It's a bunch of BS.

- We didn't get out there thinking they're gonna be looking like butterflies.

They'd have laughed us out of there, laughed us out of the arena.

(laughs) Came from right here.

- Right here?

- Right here on Cheyenne River Reservation.

We just started, you know, using more footwork and at first it was just messing around, hanging out, you know, just carrying on.

I remember the first time, this friend of mine, we were dancing like that and she spun around.

Everybody went (gasping) "Oh, oh my God.

Did you see that?"

Oh, everyone's just appalled, you know, but the fancy shawls with all the designs and everything, where did that start?

It started with somebody that had enough guts to step out there and do it, and not many did.

So Marcy, a lot of times she stepped out.

She was the first one to do this, first one to do that, first one to wear this, you know, stylize them.

There was always shawls, but you make something else out of it, you know what I mean?

- [Marcella] As a young person, and we were, you know, bringing this new dance, taking ownership of it and creating it.

Our style of dance.

The fancy shawl is a Northern Plain style of dress, like I said, the leggings and moccasins and of course the cape.

But all of that is Northern Plains style.

And now it's pan-Indian.

You see it everywhere, all over the world.

Before the contest, the competition was between the dancer and the drum.

(energetic percussive music) (singers singing in Indigenous language) It was so cool.

I mean, because you really did get that drumbeat in your body and in your heart.

And so, I mean, you know, it's on a different level.

It's on a different level.

Your intuition and the drumbeat and your body and your heart and you know, you had to feel when you thought that drum was gonna stop and that was the challenge.

Your head straight.

When I'm getting my granddaughters ready to dance, taking the time to braid their hair and to make their dresses and shawls and to do the bead work, makes me feel good that I can do that for them.

And then to watch them dance is just a delight.

I just love it.

And I'm hoping that I can continue to get them what they need so they could stay on the dance floor, 'cause that's a really good place to be.

It's gonna be a lot of work, but that's what grandmas are for.

(Marcella laughs) (energetic percussive music) (men singing in Indigenous language)