Online Dragonfly Adventures!

Join the Center in online events 

Our theme for 2020 is a celebration of resiliency.

Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is working to nurture our community and bring us all even closer together. We embrace our mission since 2003 of saving and sharing Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts.

Connect with one another and the wonder of our Southern California Native American cultures. 

Discover and explore the tools of resiliency, reciprocity, and healing in Native American cultural ways and traditions, and stories and songs. Explore how to connect with the world and deeper understandings of our region’s vitality and uniqueness.

A Few Upcoming Online Dragonfly Adventures (watch for details on how to connect):

Monday, July 20, 6 pm. 

Healing through the Art of Storytelling. 

Online family workshop in partnership with the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Foundation, led by Madrigal family members Renda, Sophia, and Isabella Madrigal. Donations welcome.

Monday, August 17, 6 pm. 

A Raptor as a Guide: Connecting with the Wilderness through Hawks, Eagles and Falcons. 

(Co-sponsored by the Rivers and Lands Conservancy) 

Journey online with longtime falconer Rebecca K. O’Connor into the wild, as seen through the perceptive views of the wild birds she calls her partners. Refresh your vision of the natural world around us, and the wonders in your own back yard. Donations welcome.

Monday, September 14, 6 pm. 

Pal Et Qwapi! Water is Life! 

Savor the essence of the world with Sean Milanovich,  Cahuilla Culture Bearer. Donations welcome.

Join Us in Online Dragonfly Adventures

Dorothy Ramon Learning Center has missed our community family at our events — but is looking forward to seeing everyone in many new ways.

 

The Coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the nonprofit Learning Center. The Center had to cancel all events at its downtown Banning venues starting in March. “We miss the faithful supporters of our 4^th Sunday concerts and Dragonfly lectures,” vice president June Siva said. 

“We are also sad that we’ve had to postpone our 17^th Dragonfly Gala until 2021, the major gathering and fund-raiser for the Center. We will miss what we think of as our annual ‘family reunion.’ Next year will be a big celebration when we can gather with you all again and celebrate Native American cultures with good food, singing and dancing, exhibits, and more! At this time we don’t know when our Gathering Hall events and concerts will resume, but watch for that good news!”    

Ernest and June Siva

Meanwhile, join the Center online and in other ways. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s theme for 2020 is a celebration of resiliency. The Center is working to nurture our community and bring everyone even closer together, embracing its 501(c)3 nonprofit mission since 2003 of saving and sharing Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts.  

Center President and Elder Ernest Siva said: “As we wait for things to calm down and confidence returns and fear flies away, let's turn our attention to good and uplifting things around us, and what we can share with one another, the simple things in life. The song says: ‘Powva' aarnk hye'kam tum haiti' a'aye'ci' peepamkw,’ their eyes open to see a bright future.”

Join the Center in online events 

Connect with one another and the wonder of our Southern California Native American cultures. Discover and explore the tools of resiliency, reciprocity, and healing in Native American cultural ways and traditions, and stories and songs. Explore how to connect with the world and deeper understandings of our region’s vitality and uniqueness.

A Few Upcoming Online Dragonfly Adventures (watch for details on how to connect):

Monday, July 20, 6 pm. 

Healing through the Art of Storytelling. 

Online interactive family workshop in partnership with the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Foundation, led by Madrigal family members Renda, Sophia, and Isabella Madrigal. Donations welcome.

Monday, August 17, 6 pm. 

A Raptor as a Guide: Connecting with the Wilderness through Hawks, Eagles and Falcons. 

(Co-sponsored by the Rivers and Lands Conservancy) 

Journey online with longtime falconer Rebecca K. O’Connor into the wild, as seen through the perceptive views of the wild birds she calls her partners. Refresh your vision of the natural world around us, and the wonders in your own back yard. Donations welcome.

Monday, September 14, 6 pm. 

Pal Et Qwapi! Water is Life! 

Savor the essence of the world with Sean Milanovich,  Cahuilla Culture Bearer. Donations welcome.

Fun events at the Center

Fusion! Ballet and Native American music

Menil and Her Heart

This Native American story already has touched many hearts, and now, a play written by teenager Isabella Madrigal will be performed again in Redlands TODAY, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019.
The public is invited to a free performance of “Menil and her Heart” at 7 p.m. at the Glen Wallichs Theater, Theatre Arts Building, University of Redlands, Redlands. (The building is across the street from Sylvan Park, off University Ave.)

This time the play, “Menil and her Heart,” has support from a $5,000 grant that 17-year-old playwright Isabella Madrigal and her 15-year-old sister, Sophia, received to support work in reviving Native American cultural storytelling.

The Story

The nonprofit Learning Center partnered with the young playwright earlier this year to host rehearsals and workshops leading to a premier performance at the Center in Banning. More than 100 people from throughout the region came to laugh, cry, and connect with the play, which attracted national attention from Indian Country Today news service, and earned playwright Isabella Madrigal the gold level award in Girl Scouts, the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve.

The Dragon Kim Foundation, based in Orange County, then offered a fellowship of up to $5,000 to Isabella and her 15-year-old sister, Sophia, offering mentoring and leadership training to help the teens realize their vision of cultural storytelling. 

The sisters have been leading rehearsals and participating in workshops at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning for months, aimed on improving their production. The cast includes locals such as 82-year-old Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), Morongo Reservation’s cultural adviser and historian, and president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. 

About Isabella and Sophia Madrigal

Both sisters, of Temecula, are of Cahuilla and Chippewa descent, and have been active in their indigenous community since an early age. Both have been singing, dancing, and acting since an early age and are enrolled in the Acting Conservatory at Orange County School of the Arts, often making a hectic commute to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning during rush hour with their parents, Luke and Renda Madrigal, for their rehearsals and workshops. 

As a young Native actress, Isabella Madrigal said she became increasingly aware of the lack of Native representation in the arts. It wasn’t just about the Native faces missing in the media, she said; the indigenous perspective also seemed missing from the national narrative. The Madrigal sisters began researching traditional Cahuilla stories in order to uncover these erased but vital stories. While compiling these stories they became aware of the thread linking these stories to the global epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, which has succeeded in sparking outrage within indigenous communities across the globe. They saw how these ancient stories can help reconnect and heal people. Isabella Madrigal then wrote her full-length play, “Menil and her Heart,” which follows the disappearance of a Cahuilla girl, and the efforts of her sister to find her by journeying into an alternate realm of ancient Cahuilla stories.

Come join us!

More information: nativestorytelling.dragonkimfoundation.org