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The second and final night of the 2026 Teller Cultural Festival saw a packed house. The bleachers inside the James C. Isabell School gym were so full it was standing room only.
The Anchorage-based Inupiaq dance group, Ilakus, was first to perform. The group features performers from from across the state.
It’s the twentieth year of the festival, and Cora Ablowaluk has been organizing it since the start. She explained it’s the people who make Teller and its dance festival so special.
“Teller is unique. We're a little bit of everything,” she said. “It's a mix of everybody from our region.”
Eight dance groups performed, including dancers and drummers from Nome, St. Lawrence Island, Little Diomede, and Brevig Mission.
The dancing didn’t stop when the sun went down. And Ablowaluk didn’t either.
“Dancing got done after 3 a.m.,” she said. “By the time everybody left and we fed the dancers a snack, it was already almost five, and I have to be here by six to start breakfast.”
Between coordinating schedules, cooking and cleaning, putting the festival together requires months of work and long days. Ablowaluk said she does it because she loves it. But now, she’s ready to enjoy it in a different way.
“I want to be the person in the audience who can go home whenever they want, not have to worry about the whole school,” she said.
Finding a new festival coordinator will be a problem for next year. Back in the gym, hundreds of people surround the basketball court-turned stage. Dancers of all ages — from elders to infants — move their arms to the rhythm of the drums. The beat continued to echo through the school, as the late night turned into early morning.
