The rise of female dancers in hoop dance is interesting, because it mirrors the changing nature of Native American dance as a whole. Hoop dance has evolved from very few hoops, one in healing ceremonies, to as many as fifty. Its nature as a dance for performance and competition is another sign of the changing attitudes towards dance. One notable feature of Jackie Bird’s performances is that she uses props, and was the first dancer to do so at the World Championships. The props she uses are not extensive—a blanket, for example—but they are a departure from the majority of hoop dancing. As visual artist Phoebe Farris said about her curated collection of female Native artists, “we represent a sample of the many Native American women artists who since the 1960s began to define our own styles. As with other aspects of Indian culture, women were in the forefront of this transition” .

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