Why Do You Dance?

Why do you dance? For Crystal Stempson, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, it's a way to shake off everyday troubles and just be free.

“At the point when I go out and dance, I just forget about everything. I don't think about what's going on around me,” Stempson said. “I'm not really out there to dance for myself, to get in shape. I dance because people enjoy watching me dance.”

“It's fun. It's freeing. I feel free when I dance. I actually feel like myself when I'm dancing — I just feel like myself, I don't feel like a student,” Stempson told the St. Cloud Times.

Crystal Stempson was recently the head woman dancer at the spring pow wow hosted by St. Cloud State University's American Indian Center in Minnesota. You can read more about Stempson on SCTimes.