Celebrate Native American heritage with this cultural music experience. DANCES WITH IVORY presents piano selections based on indigenous tribal melodies. The piano is used in unusual ways to achieve ethereal effects, such as strumming inside the body of the piano on the strings and using the pedals in creative ways to pick up the tonal vibrations of native flutes, singing, speaking, and playing the soundboard for drum beat effects. Dr. Lisa Cheryl Thomas was a Fulbright Scholar in Canada in 2017 at the University of Alberta and did her doctoral dissertation on native melodies that were collected by ethnographers around the turn of the 20th century.

The performance includes native storytelling to illustrate the significance of an oral tradition, a very different way of learning compared to modern schooling. Dr. Thomas performs in native regalia and uses multi-media to illustrate the cultural background of each song. She has performed this music in many theaters and concert halls in many countries. Her repertoire also includes bluegrass and patriotic American music by American composers.

We hope you’ll join us for this uniquely beautiful and moving show. Adult online tickets are available for $25 in advance, $30 the day of the event. Youth tickets are available for $10. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://waldotheatreinc.thundertix.com/events/216583, and will also be available at the Box Office starting at 6:30. Doors open at 6:30, and concessions will be available for purchase.

The Waldo Theatre recognizes that we are on indigenous land. In addition to the Abenaki, the broader place we now call Maine is home to the sovereign people of the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq peoples. We exist on their unceded homelands. Dr. Lisa Cheryl Thomas is an enrolled citizen of Sovereign Cherokee Nation Tejas. Her native name is Danalasgisgv Unegv gola [Dances with Ivory].