CONCERT | Thunderbird American Indian Dancers
September 6 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Free
Wallkill River Center for the Arts is pleased to present the THUNDERBIRD AMERICAN INDIAN DANCERS as part of our 2025 music series.
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. 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. 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.)
Saturday, September 6, 5 – 7 pm
Goshen Green Farm
3301 NY Route 207, Goshen, NY
This event is free and open to the public with a suggested donation of $20/person. Registration – at bottom of event page – is requested but not required.
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About the performers:
Members of the Thunderbirds range in professions from teachers to hospital patient advocates, tree surgeons and computer engineers who share a commitment to raising scholarships for young American Indian students. Over the years, Thunderbird works, activities and events have assisted more than 400 students. Original members included: Louis Mofsie, Josephine Mofsie Tarrant, Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, Marguarite, Jonathan Williams and others. Swift Eagle from the Santo Domingo Pueblo and others taught the group Native American Indian culture, dances, songs passing down information that would have otherwise been lost.
An Important History: Preserving Native Culture Traditions
Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, officially incorporated in 1963, tracing its roots further back, to a group of teenagers called the Little Eagles. From the beginning, keenly aware of the great diversity of tribal groups living in and around the metropolitan area — each with a very distinct cultural background — its members were determined to learn and preserve the songs and dances of their own tribes, then to branch out and include other tribes. Their teachers were their fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since its formation, Louis Mofsie and the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers have visited and performed in almost all fifty states, where they have learned from a wide variety of Indian peoples. The Thunderbirds pledged to help preserve and perpetuate the culture and traditions of the American Indian people through their songs and dances, and their ceremonies wherever possible, and to bring before the general public a more realistic picture and greater understanding of the American Indian people through dance performances, lectures, pow wows and workshops. In fulfilling this pledge, the Thunderbirds have shared performances and workshops in venues including: The New York World’s Fair, Lincoln Center, Museum of Natural History, Heye Foundation, Barnard College, and The National Museum of the American Indian among others. They have also toured throughout the United States and in Canada, Israel and Japan.
WRCA’s 2025 concert series has been made possible thanks to the support of:
