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

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.

RSVP now for the 2018 Dragonfly Gala

Everything in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s annual Dragonfly Gala is handmade, homemade, and from the heart. The gala each year is like a giant reunion of more than 350 family and friends who celebrate and support Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. This year’s gala underscores the theme, “Family, the Heart, & the Word.”

Ernest Siva, President of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center

At the gala from 4 to 8 pm Saturday, Aug. 11 at Morongo Community Center, 13000 Malki Rd., Morongo Reservation:

• Explore many Native American cultural displays and exhibits; visit, share memories and stories.

Chia Cafe Collective with a Native food sampler (Carlos Puma photo)

• Eat a delicious dinner! Daniel McCarthy and his crew again will prepare their famed BBQ turkey and beef, along with some favorite vegetable dishes and salads incorporating Native foods, the original California cuisine. The desserts are simply the best. 

RSVP so we have plenty of food for all! (Carlos Puma photo)

• Dance to Bird Songs and other traditional music. Enjoy flute music.

Carlos Puma Photo

Carlos Puma Photo

• Bid in the silent auction for eclectic and Native American art, jewelry, and other treasures. 

Shop amid many beautiful items in our famed silent auction (Carlos Puma photo)

• Honor Bill Madrigal Sr. (Cahuilla/Luiseño) and family, winner of the Center’s 2018 Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures.

Carlos Puma Photo

Carlos Puma Photo

• Dragonfly exchange: bring a dragonfly (art, handmade, be creative!), and take home someone else’s. Morongo School students have made beautiful beaded bracelets and artwork to share, for example, as all celebrate Native American cultures.

Dragonfly exchange (Carlos Puma Photo)

 Please RSVP so there’s more than plenty to serve you. 


Tickets $50; Tables, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000. 

Reserve your spot: 951.849.4676, or info@dorothyramon.org

All proceeds support the 501(c)3 nonprofit, Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, which since 2003 has saved and shared all Southern California’s American Indian cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts.