Welcome to the Offical website of the Alaska Kuteeyaa Dancers

The Kuteeyaa Dancers was founded by the late Peter Barril, originally of Juneau/Hoonah, Alaska. He participated in the 1st Celebration, when there were just a handful of dancers. He returned to Seattle where he formed a small group of dancers who were interested in the culture, but were living away from their homeland in Alaska. Many dance groups were formed in the Seattle area after seeing what Peter was doing, and the culture continued to spawn. After Peter's death in 2000, his brother "Tiny" was given the responsibility of the dance group and has continued to promote the culture in the Seattle, WA area. Today, Kuteeyaa is made up of many Tlingit Clans: T'akdeintaan, Wooshkeetaan, Kiks.ádi, Kaagwaantaan, Deisheetaan, Teikweidí, L'uknax.ádi and Chookaneidí. We also have some members from the Puget Sound area consisting of Quileute and Muckleshoot peoples. Kuteeyaa performs about 35 performances a year in and around Seattle and Canada. They continue to travel to Juneau for the Bi-annual Sealaska Heritage Celebration. There are many reasons we attend Celebration: family, friends, songs, stories, and traditional native foods (mm-mm-mmmmm). Kuteeyaa would like to give thanks to the clans who gave us permission to sing songs so that we can continue to teach, hear the songs of our homeland, and attempt to mimic our grandfathers' people in the hopes that we promote our culture to the families who live away from Alaska. We have a responsibility to our children and our children's children to pass on the knowledge that we have received from our elders. Aaá. Yei áwé. Altein gunalcheesh, ho, ho! Tiny Toot'see.aké Barril Kuteeyaa Dancer Group Leader