The Dance House is a combination of essays and short stories based on incidents or events which took place on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The essays discuss mystic experiences, Native American cultures, Indian ranchers, and the hard scrabble life on the high plains. Joseph Marshall tells personal stories of the often frustrating, adversarial and sometimes laughable relationship between Indian tribes and the federal government.

The short stories, some semi-autobiographical in nature, are intertwined with Lakota oral traditions.