THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
50th ANNUAL THUNDERBIRD AMERICAN INDIAN DANCERS’ POW-WOW AND DANCE CONCERT
January 10, 2024 – January 19, 2024
Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20
MATINEES ARE KIDS’ DAYS: At all matinée performances, children ages five to twelve who are accompanied by a ticket-bearing adult are admitted for $1.00 (adults $20)
Running Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
JOHNSON THEATER
PHOTOS AND VIDEO ARE AVAILABLE. See directions at bottom.
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003
Directions
There will be dances, stories and traditional music from Native Peoples of the Northeast, Southwest and Great Plains regions. The event has become a treasured New York tradition for celebrating our diversity by honoring the culture of our first Americans. TNC donates all proceeds from the event to college scholarship funds for Native American students.
A Pow-Wow is more than just a spectator event: it is a joyous reunion for native peoples nationwide and an opportunity for the non-Indian community to voyage into the philosophy and beauty of Native culture. Traditionally a gathering and sharing of events, Pow-Wows have come to include spectacular dance competitions, exhibitions, and enjoyment of traditional foods.
Throughout the performance, all elements are explained in depth through detailed introductions by the troupe’s Director and Emcee Louis Mofsie (Hopi/Winnebago). An educator, Mofsie plays an important part in the show by his ability to present a comprehensive view of native culture. He was awarded a 2019 Bessie Award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance. In 2017, he was honored, along with Garth Fagan and Martha Myers, with a Lifetime Achievement Award from American Dance Guild.
Highlights will also include a Hoop Dance set to guitar and flute music that will be performed on alternating dates by Marie Ponce (Cherokee and Seminole) and Matt Cross (Kiowa); a Deer Dance (from the Yaqui Tribes of Southern Arizona) with Ciaran Tufford (Mayan/Cherokee) and Carlos Ponce (Mayan), and various ensemble dances: a Grass Dance and Jingle Dress Dance (from the Northern Plains people), a Stomp Dance (from the Southeastern tribes), a Shawl Dance (from the Oklahoma tribes), a Fancy Dance (from the Oklahoma tribes) and a Smoke Dance (from the Iroquois). As the audience enters the theater, they will be serenaded by the Heyna Second Son Singers (various tribes).
Pageantry is an important component of the event, and all participants are elaborately dressed. There is a wealth of cultural information encoded in the movements of each dance. More than ten distinct tribes will be represented in the performance. The dozen-or-so dancers are people of all ages, raging from thirteen-year-old Isabel Cespedes (Mayan) to retirees.
Native American crafts and jewelry will be sold in the TNC lobby.
Matinées are kids’ days, when children aged five to twelve accompanied by a ticket-bearing adult are admitted for $1.00 (adults $18). At the conclusion of these matinées, young audience members are invited to pose for pictures with the dancers.
ABOUT THUNDERBIRD AMERICAN INDIAN DANCERS
The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers are the oldest resident Native American dance company in New York. The troupe was founded in 1963 by a group of ten Native American men and women, all New Yorkers, who were descended from Mohawk, Hopi, Winnebago and San Blas tribes. Prominent among the founders were Louis Mofsie (Hopi/Winnebago) and his sister, Josephine Mofsie (deceased), Rosemary Richmond (Mohawk, deceased), Muriel Miguel (Cuna/Rapahannock) and Jack Preston (Seneca, deceased). Some were in school at the time; all were “first generation,” meaning that their parents had been born on reservations. They founded the troupe to keep alive the traditions, songs and dances they had learned from their parents, and added to their repertoire from other Native Americans living in New York and some who were passing through. Jack Preston taught the company its Iroquois dances, including the Robin Dance and Fish Dance. To these were added dances from the plains, including the Hopi Buffalo Dance, and newer dances including the Grass Dance and Jingle Dress Dance. The company was all-volunteer, a tradition that exists to today. Members range in professions from teachers to hospital patient advocates, tree surgeons and computer engineers. Now Louis Mofsie says, “To be going for 60 years is just amazing to me, and to be able to do the work we do.”
The troupe made a home in the old McBurney YMCA on 23rd Street and Seventh Ave. Within three or four years, they were traveling throughout the continental U.S., expanding and sharing their repertoire and gleaning new dances on the reservations. A number of Thunderbird members are winners of Fancy Dance contests held on reservations, where the standard of competition is unmistakably high.
The Thunderbird-TNC collaboration began in 1975, when Crystal Field directed a play called “The Only Good Indian.” For research, Ms. Field lived on a Hopi reservation for three weeks. In preparation for the project, she met Louis Mofsie, Artistic Director of the dance troupe and a representative of the American Indian Community House. Mofsie suggested a Pow Wow and dance concert to celebrate the winter solstice. Field, who is herself 1% native American, committed herself to bring this to fruition. The event has continued annually to this day.
The troupe’s appearances benefit college scholarship funds for Native American students. The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Scholarship Fund receives its sole support from events like this concert (it receives no government or corporate contributions), and has bestowed over 350 scholarships to-date. Theater for the New City has been presenting Pow-Wows annually as a two-week event since 1976, with the box office donated to these scholarships.
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CRITICS ARE INVITED to all performances. Press contact Jonathan Slaff (212) 924-0496.
VIDEOS ARE AVAILABLE upon request.
2023 PRODUCTION PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BQefisDJzPgvr7Db9
2019 PRODUCTION PHOTOS: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ebLLGRPPQVHjJsxt8
RECENT YEARS’ PHOTOS: https://goo.gl/photos/tcrxbtPYtF2hdvhV6 and https://goo.gl/photos/SLr4PXEHJrsq34j9A
HISTORICAL PHOTOS of Pow-Wows from 2004 to 2015 are available for download at: https://goo.gl/photos/wUcenp6ZcPDcBCYD7
