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Family Dance Curtain

July, 1980

First Nations, Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, 1948 - 2003

In its most elemental form, a thliitsapilthim (dance curtain) is set up at the back of the dance house and used to hide performers as they don their masks and regalia during potlatch dances. Originally made with family crests painted on wood boards, modern dance curtains often use canvas or other industrial textiles as the foundation for the painted designs. The screen’s deeper function is to visually document important family histories, including encounters by ancestors with supernatural beings. The complex imagery seen here includes two Wolves (referencing Thompson’s family’s rights to the white wolf dance) facing a central form shaped like a stone mortar. Two facing Thunderbirds soar above. Thunderbirds are not a natural species of bird—they are powerful mountain-dwelling beings that create violent weather and are known for their abilities to hunt whales.

Silkscreen on Arches Buff paper

21 x 30 in. (53.3 x 76.2 cm)

Gift of R. Bruce and Mary-Louise Colwell

2018.29.141

Provenance: [Pacific Editions Limited, Victoria, British Columbia]; purchased by Bruce and Mary-Louise Colwell, Seattle, Washington, Nov. 21, 2003

Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Avian Avatars: Birds in Northwest Coast Prints from the Colwell Collection, Dec. 15, 2021 - June 12, 2022.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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