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.

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!

Wonderful Inland Southern California

Amazing but true: Stories from the Pass
and Inland Southern California
Explore odd, surprising, and amazing stories of Inland Southern California with a special added focus on Banning. Larry Burns of Riverside will lead a fun session on Monday, June 10, 2019, guiding you to the weird, wonderful, and obscure in the Inland Empire region, including family-friendly places to visit, little-known history, and just plain wonderful trivia, such as who from the Inland area invented flaming hot cheetos, or the white line in the middle of all highways. 

Burns will share and sign his new book, Secret Inland Empire, which spills secrets that give the communities of Riverside and San Bernardino counties their wonder and uniqueness. 

In the session that starts at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 10, at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., in Banning, also learn from local historians a few surprising recently discovered twists in Banning history and about efforts to save and cherish historic landmarks of the San Gorgonio Pass. And, you might also learn how to call a dragonfly with a local Native American song, and your open heart.

Your $5 helps the nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and arts.