Native American ballerinas ‘Five Moons’ featured on $1 coin

The United States Mint announced one side of the $1 gold coin will honor five Oklahoma ballerinas.

The 2023 coin will feature the “Five Moons”: Maria Tallchief, her sister Marjorie Tallchief, Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, and Moscelyne Larkin.

Maria Tallchief is considered America’s first major prima ballerina. She is the first Native American (Osage Nation) to hold the rank. She is the ballerina represented front and center on the $1 coin surrounded by four other ballerinas in a lunar style to symbolize the “Five Moons.”

An inscription will read “United States of America,” “Maria Tallchief” and “American Indians In Ballet.”

Those same ballerinas are set in bronze outside the Tulsa Historical Society. FOX23 told you Marjorie Tallchief’s statue was stolen in May. A Cherokee sculptor was able to repair it after it was found in pieces at a scrap yard.

Maria Tallchief was honored on the U.S. Quarter as part of the U.S. Mint American Women Quarters Program earlier this year.

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