The Levitt Bandshell in downtown Sioux Falls has spent its summers as a free, open-gate concert venue, the kind of place where anyone can wander onto the lawn and stay as long as they like. One day a year, though, it becomes something more: a full-scale celebration of Native arts, music, and fashion, built on a simple Lakota and Dakota idea — that we are all related.
That is the Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ Festival, also known as the All My Relatives Festival. The name comes from the phrase Mitakuye Owas'iƞ in Dakota and Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ in Lakota, an expression that runs through Oceti Sakowin thought and roughly translates to "all my relatives" or "we are all related." It is a statement of kinship that extends beyond people to all living things, and it sets the tone for a day that is as much a community gathering as it is a concert.
The festival is a partnership between Levitt at the Falls and the Wokini Initiative at South Dakota State University. The Wokini Initiative was launched in January 2017 by SDSU President Barry Dunn, aimed at creating greater access to higher education for Native American students in South Dakota and supporting Indigenous nation-building. Its name, wokini, is a Lakota word often rendered as "a new beginning." The initiative's director of Wokini and Tribal Relations, Sarah Bad Warrior-Vrooman, has described the partnership with the Levitt as a way of supporting and inspiring Native youth by bringing a celebration of Native culture and artistry to families across the Sioux Falls region.
The festival's origin story reaches back to a one-time event rather than a concert. According to Rose Ann Hofland, the Levitt's vice president of programming, the inspiration grew out of earlier collaborations focused on creativity, Indigenous culture, and youth engagement. Chief among them was Innoskate, an event organized by the Levitt alongside the Smithsonian, USA Skateboarding, and the Wokini Initiative. Innoskate celebrated skateboarding culture and creativity, and it connected the partners with tribal communities doing grassroots skateboarding work — including youth on the Pine Ridge Reservation through an organization called Ground Control. After seeing the impact of that event, Levitt president and CEO Nancy Halvorson and the Wokini Initiative wanted to keep those relationships going. The result was the first-ever All My Relatives Festival, held in July 2023, with three mainstage concerts featuring Native American musical artists with strong South Dakota ties. It has returned every year since, growing into one of the region's signature celebrations of Native excellence.
What makes the day distinctive is its range. The Levitt stage hosts live concert performances across genres, but the festival also turns the space behind the stage into a runway for an Indigenous fashion show, featuring Native models, designers, and stylists from across Indian Country. Alongside the performances there are guest speakers and cultural presentations, a visual arts exhibition at Rehfeld's Art & Framing, a vendor fair of local artisans, food trucks, and interactive activities for children. Halvorson has summed up the intent simply: "It's all about Native excellence and shining a spotlight on that."
The fashion component has been shaped in large part by Kyrie Dunkley, the designer behind Shinin' Star Style. Dunkley is Dakota and Lakota, born into the Toka Nuwan District and enrolled through the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate; her name, Wichapi Iyoyunpa Wi, translates to "Shining Star Woman." She has been a primary member of the festival's planning team since 2022, and her work weaves storytelling into handmade pieces while pushing for Indigenous representation and visibility in urban communities. She has been on the South Dakota Arts Council teaching artist roster since 2021 and has appeared in the SDPB film "Elevate," directed by Jonathan and Letishia Kelley. For Dunkley, the runway is a form of community advocacy as much as design.
Music has always been the festival's spine, and the lineup has drawn artists with deep South Dakota roots. Gabriel Night Shield, an award-winning hip-hop artist who has spent more than two decades in the professional music business, has been part of the festival from its earliest years, and his home studio has become a gathering place for other Native musicians in Sioux Falls. In 2025, the bill included The Sampson Brothers, the Wakpa Ipaksan Singers, ISANTI, Dakotah Faye, Rez Reporter, Stuart James, and Night Shield, with Mato Wayuhi as headliner.
Wayuhi is perhaps the festival's most widely known name. An Oglala Lakota musician, rapper, producer, and composer raised in South Dakota and shuttling between Sioux Falls and the western half of the state, he is best known as the composer for the acclaimed television series "Reservation Dogs." He was named to Forbes' "30 Under 30" list in 2023, and he has since moved into acting, appearing in Sterlin Harjo's FX series "The Lowdown" alongside Ethan Hawke. His return to the Levitt stage — and to SDPB's studio to talk about new music and the television project — reflects the festival's role as a homecoming for Native artists who have found national audiences.
There is a larger context to the gathering, too. The Levitt itself opened in 2019 near Falls Park with an inaugural season of 28 shows, part of a national network of free outdoor Levitt venues built on the principle that live music should be available to everyone regardless of income. The All My Relatives Festival takes that open-access model and applies it to a celebration of Native culture, keeping the gate free and the lawn open. For the 2026 edition, the festival received funding from the Smithsonian's "Our Shared Future: 250," a Smithsonian-wide initiative created to commemorate the nation's 250th anniversary — a fitting connection, given that the festival's roots trace back to a Smithsonian partnership.
What emerges on the day is a kind of gathering that resists a single label. It is a concert and a fashion show, an art exhibition and a vendor fair, a youth-focused cultural program and a family afternoon on the grass. But the phrase at its center holds it together. Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ is not only the festival's name; it is its organizing principle — an invitation, extended to anyone who walks through the open gate, to consider themselves a relative.