Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Children’s Performance

Thunderbird American Indian Dancers holds its 31st annual Dance Concert and Pow Wow at Theater for the New City. The troupe’s appearances benefit college funds for needy Native American students. Its Pow-Wows have been presented annually as a two-week event by TNC since 1976, with the entire box-office donated to these funds.

There will be dances, stories and traditional music from the Iroquois and Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast, the Southwest, the Plains, and the Arctic regions. Between 25 and 30 dancers will assemble for the event. Highlights of this year’s celebration will include a Hoop Dance performed by Raymond Two Feathers (Cherokee) and “Dancing Wolf” Michael Taylor (Choctaw/French). For the fourth time, the Pow Wow will include a dance from the Inuit people of Alaska, called The Caribou Dance. Highlights will also include a Butterfly Dance (a Hopi custom which gives thanks for the beauty of nature), a Grass Dance and Jingle Dress Dance (from the Northern Plains people), a Fancy Dance and a Shawl Dance (from the Oklahoma tribes). Featured performers will also include Joe Cross, a storyteller from the Caddo Tribe (Oklahome), the Heyna Second Son Singers (various tribes) and Mitoka Eagle (Santo Domingo/Pueblo).

A new outreach component has been added this year. After matinees, the cast will remain in the lobby to personally meet and be photographed with children attending. The TNC lobby becomes a gallery for Indian crafts, bathed in the cooking aromas of Native American foods: corn soup, venison, fry bread and wild rice.

Appropriate for all ages.