Big Time

Big Time draws on California Indian “big time” traditions where tribes gather to dance, trade, and renew relationships with one another and the land. Attendees experience traditional and intertribal dancers, singers, Native food, vendors, and youth activities in public spaces that reconnect the community to ancestral homelands.

AICC’s Big Time gatherings, including events like Chomp City Big Time at San Francisco State University, draw on California Indian “big time” traditions—large social dance festivals that historically gathered many tribes together to dance, trade, and renew relationships with each other and the land. At Big Time, attendees experience traditional and intertribal dancers, singers, and drummers, along with Native food, vendors, youth activities, and educational booths that highlight local histories and contemporary issues. By holding Big Time in public spaces like university quads and parks, the Center strengthens intertribal solidarity, reconnects California Indian people to their homelands, and invites the broader public into a respectful, celebratory introduction to living Native cultures in San Francisco.