Sarah Ortegon: Dancing for Native America

Sarah Ortegon was born in Denver, Colorado and is an enrolled Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho. In 2013 she graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver with a Bachelors degree in Fine Art with a concentration in drawing. In August 2013 she was crowned Miss Native American, USA. Soon after Ortegon started touring with the Native Pride Dancers, traveling and performing the jingle dress dance in the US and also in Moldova, Europe and Guatemala. In March of 2020 before the pandemic hit, Ortegon was able to perform in Times Square, NY to dance alongside the film previously created. In collaboration with Choctaw artist Jeffery Gibson, they filmed “She Never Dances Alone,” and the film was displayed on over 60 monitors every night at midnight for several months in Times Square.

Ortegon was the featured artist for the opening of MALCS Conference in 2016 at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY. She is now published in the MALCS journal. Ortegon is pursuing her acting career and was cast in a play in Denver, CO in February of 2016 titled Black Elk Speaks. From there, she was cast in a musical called Sitting Bulls Last Waltz which premiered in Hollywood, California for the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June-July of 2016. Ortegon was cast as an extra in the BBC/NBC Sky 1 miniseries Jamestown which filmed in Budapest in August of 2016, 2017 and 2018. In 2020, Ortegon was featured as an artist in a PBS Emmy nominated film called, “The Art of Home.”

Ortegon also received her hiking and instructing certificate from National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in 2019. She has lead courses through the Wind River Mountain range for up to a month at a time. She also experienced sea kayaking and bushwhacking through the Prince William Sound and Chugach Mountains in Alaska.

She is currently an Executive Legal Assistant for Native American Rights Fund (NARF), located out of Boulder, CO. The law firm focuses on Indigenous rights, which is in line with fighting issues like pipelines running through Indigenous communities. She still fills her free time with creative endeavors of course.

Thank you, Sarah!!!

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