We chatted with 2spirit powwow dancers Sean Snyder and Adrian Stevens
They’re a power couple!
Video Transcript
ADRIAN STEVENS: The progress is there. And I think that's one thing Sean and I are really proud to say is that we've really made the progress [INAUDIBLE] having the conversations at powwows and other powwow dancers and families coming forward and just saying, I'm so glad you two are doing this, and I'm so glad that you guys are in front of it all the time because you are the most authentic from powwow community.
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SEAN SNYDER: Hi, everybody. My name is Sean Snyder. I am Two-Spirit, and my pronouns are they/them. I am an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. And we're based out of Las Vegas.
ADRIAN STEVENS: Hi, everybody. My name is Adrian Stevens. My pronouns are he/they/them. I am Northern Ute Shoshone-Bannock and San Carlos Apache. So I grew up dancing. I grew up actually in Northeastern Utah near the Uintah Ouray Indian Reservation. And that's where my mom's tribe is from. And so I started dancing since I could walk.
So I grew up going to local powwows. My family took us all over the place. And yeah, I started out as a young traditional dancer. And it's kind of funny to look back on some of the photos. And then, yeah, as I got older, I wanted to dance the grass dance style. And I was just drawn to that particular style of dance more. And, yeah, that's when I switched the styles. And, yeah, I've been dancing grass probably since I was, like, eight years old.
SEAN SNYDER: And my story is, like, so much the same. I grew up dancing powwow since I could walk. And I grew up in Iowa and the Midwest, powwowing around there. And my family kind of-- we grew up and powwowing everywhere eventually. And that was my childhood. If I really think about it, my best highlights and best memories are all around these celebrations and traveling here to there with my family. And I think that goes for both of us. So it's just something that we took to heart and we really enjoy doing together now. So we travel as much as we can still to this day and dance together.
ADRIAN STEVENS: Pride Month for both of us, I think, every year for our two-spirit community, it's-- it's growing. Last year, we were able to go back to Salt Lake City for Pride. And to see two-spirit visibility grow every year, there's a segment where they have all the Pride flags laid out. And so to see the two-spirit Pride flag be a part of that installation was really--
SEAN SNYDER: Special.
ADRIAN STEVENS: --exciting and special, yeah.
SEAN SNYDER: Just being a role model in general, you put yourself out there. Especially with this day and age with social media, you're just putting your own personal life out there for everyone to see. So whatever you do, you want to put your best foot forward. And we try to make our families proud of us in all the work that we do. So we're very conscious of it. And, you know, I would have appreciated seeing people like me as a youth growing up. And so we just continue to publicize every little event we're going to, every big event that we go to, just to keep showing our youth that we're out here. We're out here doing it.
