Gathering of Nations sets 2026 farewell, retired emcee Dennis Bowen Sr. reflects on what it took to get there

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Four decades of grand entry drums are heading for a final cadence next spring as organizers say the 2026 Gathering of Nations will be the last – a closing beat that, in Dennis Bowen Sr.’s view, arrives the way every good run ends.

Organizers have set April 24–25, 2026, at the Expo New Mexico/Tingley Coliseum as the Gathering of Nations’ final dates and released the official poster for what they’re calling “The Last Dance.” The announcement closes a run that began in the early 1980s and grew into one of the largest powwows in North America, drawing dancers, drum groups and visitors from across the United States and Canada.

Voice of the arena, passing the mic

Bowen’s voice helped carry the show through that rise. He began announcing the Gathering of Nations Powwow in 1991 and, with his wife, Alita, spent decades on the road working powwows large and small. Bowen, 76, and Alita began powwowing in 1972 in Tuba City and have since worked with hundreds of powwow committees across the Southwest, as well as in Montreal and British Columbia.

He had intended to close his run in 2025, but two and a half weeks before this year’s Gathering of Nations Powwow, he suffered a stroke and did not serve as master of ceremonies. As a result, 2024 ultimately stands as his final year on the mic.

“I wanted to step back because I’m older and there’s a lot of young emcees that it’s their turn to start announcing and traveling,” said Bowen, Seneca Nation, who is of the Bear Clan and born for the Snipe Clan. His maternal grandfather is Turtle Clan, and his paternal grandfather is the Hawk Clan. “I had the stroke like two and a half weeks before this year’s gathering, and so I couldn’t even make it, even though I had planned and talked with Derek and Lita Mathews (founders of the Gathering of Nations Powwow) about this would be my last one that I would do because of my age and my health.”

The cost of scale

Bowen said the decision to bring the event to a close lands in a context that veterans of the powwow trail understand well: the strain of large productions, volatile finances and the sheer pace of a scene with dozens of contests every weekend.

“There are critics, … sometimes harsh criticism for just about every single powwow that we went to announce,” he said. That pressure often centers on money and judging. “There’s steady criticism about judging and who gets to win and who scored well in their scores to win the contest.”

He has seen how money can warp expectations – dancers and singers hoping to hit a jackpot weekend – as well as how costs can crush even ambitious organizers. He recalled a stadium powwow in Toronto, Ontario.

“They paid a million dollars to use that dome,” he said, adding that the financing unraveled after a few years: “You don’t make money. And so it’s all going to singers and dancers and expenses. And so anyone thinking that they can make income from a big powwow, you know, it’s not realistic.”

The Toronto event eventually shifted to Hamilton, Ontario, and then ended. For Bowen, that history adds perspective to the Gathering of Nation Powwow’s endurance. “The Gathering of Nations is awesome to go for over 40 years,” he said.

Inside the powwow

Keeping a production of that size moving also meant managing the ordinary and the unexpected, often at the same time. Bowen ticked through a litany familiar to longtime staff and volunteers: “We had bomb threats.” There were “lost children, lost adults,” reunions and even joy. “We had a wedding on the floor,” he said. And when emergencies hit, the show paused. “One time a water pipe broke in the ceiling of (The Pit) and the water shot down on the grandstands on people’s regalia. Eagle bustles got wet. We had to stop and fix the water line.”

The hours were as relentless as the logistics. Bowen remembers the Sunday mornings that bled into dawn.

“We go till three in the morning, four in the morning on Sunday morning. The only ones left are the dancers and singers still there. And all the crowd is gone,” he said. “It sounds like a folk song or, you know, the lyrics of a rock song.”

Behind the microphone, he and Alita often played peacemaker. “I worked as an alcoholism counselor for ONEO (the Office of Navajo Economic Opportunity) back in 1972,” he said, and those skills transferred. “I would talk to the drunk guys that were rowdy and settle them down. And so we didn’t want to have a scene at the emcee stand security, so we calmed them down. So we de-escalated situations.”

Over time, even security plans evolved. “For a big event, you’ve got to hire security, like a small army,” he said, and the Gathering of Nations Powwow learned to lean on people who understood powwow protocol. “We got more of our own Indigenous men and women to help out with security, because they understood the powwow, and they were kinder to people.”

Community and change

The Gathering of Nations Powwow also became a platform for public health messages and mutual aid. “When HIV first hit our communities,” Bowen said, advocates asked for time on the mic: “‘Help us, give us the microphone. Let’s get the message out to help people.’ And we did. And we did other health issues, diabetes, domestic violence.”

He recalls blanket dances for families in crisis – after tornadoes, house fires or other hardships – and a special moment when a transplant finally came through for a key organizer.

Even as the contest scene matured, the crowds changed. Bowen said social media gave more people a megaphone.

“People want to have a voice, and they go have their voice heard through the media, Facebook, and text messaging and all that, where it’s instant,” he said.

That accelerated the feedback loop and could sharpen disputes over judging or operations. It also amplified the event’s victories: the nights when the Tingley Coliseum was packed and families made a pilgrimage they had saved for all year.

“We’d meet families from Utah, from South Dakota, from Nevada,” he said. “People would do that to save up their pennies to go to the gathering. And it just meant something to them.”

He connected the powwow trail to the ways families disperse.

“And so the powwow has spread people too. They’ve gotten married in every state, every province in Canada. Families we know, their adult child is living away from home, has got married and that. So there’s like family breakup.” He added, “It was when we had the Indian Child Welfare Act passed in ‘78 to prevent family breakup.”

The Southwest base, human moments

Bowen sees the regional realities too. The Southwest’s large Native population helps fill seats. “Eighty percent of the Indigenous community is in the Southwest,” he said. “Saturday night, wow, it was packed. And people would save their money to buy that ticket to get in the gate.” Big powwows elsewhere, from Chicago to Canada, struggled without the same base, he said.

For all the strain, Bowen said the event’s human moments defined the work. He remembers greeting returning military veterans with their families, hearing from young people who finished college, and watching toddlers take their first steps into the arena.

“It’s a roller coaster,” he said. “One moment it’s a victory, there’s joy, excitement. And the next person, it’s tragedy.”

Through it all, he kept a private measure of what mattered: the smallest dancers. “To see the Tiny Tots dance,” he said, “that’s medicine to me.”

Age, he added, changes everything. He has watched head staff, arena directors and fellow emcees pass the baton – sometimes reluctantly. “You age out of the powwows, and you become a spectator,” he said. One colleague announced contests by phone from home in Oklahoma when illness kept him away. Bowen’s own health sealed his decision. “I love to stay home,” he said. “When it comes to traveling, it’s harder to travel.”

The economics remain unforgiving for families too. Not every contest weekend breaks even. “On the powwow trail, how many break a head on the money? Break even on the money,” he said. “A lot of times, powwow families don’t break even at all.”

He and Alita organized many powwows in Tuba City for the sake of community, even when the gate fell short. “You did it because you have a kindness,” he said. “It’s a tough commitment to sustain that for 40 years. Wow.”

That mix of devotion and fatigue shapes how he reads criticism, which flares every season. “When someone’s struggling and suffering in their own personal life, yeah, they’re going to be critical,” he said.

But the memories stack up: elders from the early 1990s, friendships that stretch across provinces and states, and the late-night teardowns after the crowd slips away. He can still picture the arena at the University of New Mexico, “17,000 people,” and new emcees arriving “starstruck.”

No easy blueprint

As the 2026 edition approaches, Bowen doesn’t see an easy blueprint for anyone else to reproduce the Gathering of Nations Powwow at its full scale.

“I don’t know of anyone in our lifetime that’s going to put together an event like the Gathering of the Nations and draw so many people,” he said. He figures the organizers kept it going through a mix of planning, sacrifice and stubbornness. “Good for them,” he said. “And they didn’t get rich.”

So the final year, in his view, lands with acceptance rather than defeat. The job was to hold the circle together as long as possible and then let it go with grace. “All good things come this way,” he said again. “And the show’s going to end and it comes this way.”

The 43rd Gathering is scheduled to return to the Expo New Mexico next April for one last run, with dancing and drum contests, vendors and community events spread across the coliseum and outdoor grounds. Organizers have encouraged the public to plan early as they prepare to close the books on a cultural institution that, for generations, has doubled as a reunion.

For Bowen, now residing in Salamanca, New York, whose career in counseling spanned more than four decades in Tuba City, the powwow energy was sustaining – even as it eventually wore him down.

“That energy helped me to keep working,” he said.

Then, after each Gathering of Nation Powwow, came the familiar crash: “I’m just so tired.” As he tells it, going home now has its own quiet rhythm. He drives Alita into town, waits in the truck, listens to music, thinks, and then is ready for home again. The impulse is simple after a life spent in arenas.

“I’d like to stay home,” he said. “I want to go back to my room. I have music or I do artwork.”

Bowen knows others will keep traveling every weekend to dance or sing. He also knows that endings are part of the story – not with regret, but with a kind of steadiness earned over time. The final Gathering of Nations Powwow, he suggests, should be read in that spirit: a last dance that acknowledges the labor it takes to gather thousands and the meaning people find when they get there. Or, as he put it, “All good things come this way and it’s OK. It would be a happy thing.”

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