Native Voices Poetry Festival

Discover. Explore. Create. Annual Native Voices Poetry Festival celebrates the human voice in all the arts.

Discover the richness of Southern California's Native American cultures. Explore the region's beauty, vitality, and uniqueness, and celebrate creativity by writing and making your own art at the annual Native Voices Poetry Festival in Banning.

Bring your creativity and enjoy free performances, cultural displays, and activities at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning, from 10 am to 4 pm on Feb. 8. Especially popular are the Center's writing and art workshops for all ages. It's all free.

A few scheduled highlights:

• Gordon Johnson, a Cahuilla/Cupeño from Pala Reservation in San Diego County, and author of "Bird Songs Don't Lie: Writings from the Rez," will present new creative work at the Festival for his many fans.

• Kat High, a Native storyteller and ethnobotanist who's participated in KCET's acclaimed series, "Tending the Wild," will share samplings of delicious foods from native plants that she calls "spring tastes." And she'll tell some traditional Native stories.

• Teen-ager Isabella Madrigal (Cahuilla-Chippewa) and her family, who have won national acclaim for the play, "Menil and her Heart," will lead a creative workshop that you won't want to miss. They also will perform.

• Ernest Siva, Cahuilla and Serrano elder and the Center's leader, will share songs and stories.

• Ernest Siva and Carolyn Horsman also will share Serrano readings from Dorothy Ramon.

• Bird songs! 

Partners with the Learning Center include Cal State San Bernardino, Malki Museum, Heyday Books and News From Native California, Morongo School, Morongo Cultural Heritage Dept., Rivers and Lands Conservancy, Banning Unified School District Indian Education Program, Dragonfly Wind Flute Ensemble.

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

Top 5 things to do at the Dragonfly Gala

Fly with the Dragonflies! 

Join us in celebrating Southern California’s Native American cultures on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019, with delicious foods, traditional music, exhibits, and arts at the annual Dragonfly Gala. This year's gala celebrates "Our Native Homelands," especially the Native American relationships with Southern California's unique and beautiful landscapes.

Here are the top 5 things to do at the Gala!

 1. Connect with "Our Native Homelands" through hands-on cultural exhibits. 

Barbara Drake teaches Native uses of native plants for foods, medicines, and more.

This year visit with Barbara Drake, an elder who shares Native uses of plants as foods, medicines, and more; Morongo Cultural Resources Department and Morongo School; Malki Museum; several regional wilderness land conservancies, and more.

2.  Eat a delicious dinner. Yum, traditional pit BBQ beef cooked by the Mathews family, and yes! feast on some favorite foods made by Cahuilla elder Jenny Lyons.

3. Enjoy traditional Native American music. The gala is the place to be for bird singing and dancing.

Dragonfly Gala 2018, Carlos Puma photo

4. Shop! Bid on eclectic and artistic finds at our famous silent auction.

  5. Bring a dragonfly (handmade, art, what have you) and take home a dragonfly in the Community Dragonfly Exchange. 

Dragonfly Gala 2018, Carlos Puma photo

Most importantly, join our community celebrating our Southern California Native American cultures. The Learning Center’s Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures this year goes to educator, storyteller, and ethnobotanist Kat High. 

Kat High at our Native Voices Poetry Festival (Carlos Puma Photo)

Tickets are $50 each; tables are $1,000, $2,000, $3,000.

4-8 p.m. Aug. 10, 2019

Morongo Community Center, Morongo Reservation.

Get Ready for the Dragonfly Gala!

Menil and Her Heart: A Play

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Isabella is in her junior year at the Orange County School of the Arts in the Acting Conservatory and is pursuing her Girl Scout gold award project. As part of this project, she has gathered traditional Cahuilla Indian stories. Her play combines these stories into a telling that highlights a contemporary Native American issue. She has chosen to focus on the high rate of disappearances of Native women, as well as to highlight the importance of cultural revitalization, which includes bringing back the stories. Please join her to explore how age-old stories can have deep meaning in contemporary times, and healing powers that are timeless.

photo by Carlos Puma for Dorothy Ramon Learning Center

details: 3 p.m. February 24, 2019, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning, CA FREE

Ballerinas and Native American Flute

Today, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018: Julia Olsen Rodriguez and San Gorgonio Ballet Company present "Fusion, Revisited," classical ballet interpretations of traditional and contemporary Native American music.

Flute music by Ernest Siva.

Our local ballet company also will present other classical and modern dances.

Details: 3 p.m., Sept. 23, 2018, San Manuel Gathering Hall at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning CA 92220. Your $10 helps support the Center's 501(c)3 nonprofit work to save and share Southern California's Native American cultures.

And at the 2018 Dragonfly Gala, the Dragonfly Award goes to ...

We'll be honored and thrilled this Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, at our Dragonfly Gala to present the 2018 Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures to BILL MADRIGAL Sr. AND HIS FAMILY.
Please reserve your spot now, 951.849.7736, or email eandjsiva@gmail.com, so we can make sure we have enough of Daniel McCarthy's delicious BBQ dinner to serve everyone. The gala will be at Morongo Community Center.

Here is what they wrote about themselves!
"Bill and Monica are of Cahuilla and Luiseño ancestry from local reservation communities. They home-schooled and raised their children William Jr., Menil, Andrew, Kateri, Starla, Nesune, Noel, Avelaka, and Tishmal in their faith and traditions on the Cahuilla Indian reservation.
All their lives they visited with the elders to learn our culture, bird songs, stories, basket making, foods, and languages.
They have formed a traditional Bird-singing/dance group and also teach what they have learned to all our people and those who want to learn in the local area.
They have been teaching on the local reservations and presenting at schools, colleges and Universities for many years.
Their grown children have also been active in cultural teaching and giving presentations on our culture as well.
It is with great honor and love of our brothers and sisters to share the gifts of our elders that come from our Creator with all our native family!
Umon Chemingkim All our relatives!
Nesun Achama!"

Raptors as a Guide

A longtime falconer will share her experiences on July 16, 2018, in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s next Dragonfly Lecture, “A Raptor As a Guide: Lessons on connecting and listening to the natural world gleaned from hawks, eagles, and falcons.”

Rebecca K. O’Connor of Banning will discuss her 25 years of working as a licensed falconer with birds of prey, and how this experience has given her a meaningful connection based in respect and honor for wild animals and the open spaces she shares with them.  

When your hunting partner is a wild bird
For falconers, a successful hunt and more importantly, a partnership with a wild and free-flying bird of prey, is a constant conversation between human and bird, O’Connor says. The falconer must learn to speak the hawk’s language, be willing to listen, and trust in their relationship. This conversation ultimately grows into a larger and deeper conversation with a landscape and the other creatures that inhabit it.

Also explore a few traditional Native American relationships with wild birds of prey and their landscapes, led by Center President and Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla/Serrano) and the Learning Center.

DETAILS: 6 p.m. Monday, July 16, 2018, at The Center’s Gathering Hall, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning. Your $5 donation will help the 501(c)3 nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other arts.

About Rebecca K. O’Connor
She's the author of the award-winning memoir Lift published by Red Hen Press. She has published essays and short stories in South Dakota Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Los Angeles Times Magazine, West, divide, The Coachella Review, Phantom Seed, Prime Number Magazine and The Rumpus. Her work has been anthologized in New California Writing 2011, New California Writing 2012, No Place for a Puritan: The Literature of California Deserts and Animal Companions, Animal Doctors, Animal People. She has also written several reference books on the natural world and several books on pets including The Perfectly Trained Parrot, a best-selling parrot training guide. Her latest novel, We Were Wilder, was self-published on Amazon in 2016.

Along with her 25 years as a falconer and animal trainer, O’Connor serves as development director for Rivers and Lands Conservancy, where she combines her passion for preserving open spaces with her love for connecting people with the wilderness.