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Dallin Maybee was raised
on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in Western New York, but
he also has family on the Wind River Indian Reservation in central
Wyoming. He is an accomplished dancer and has traveled extensively
throughout the world as both a performer and choreographer.
His tours have taken him
to locations such as: China, Mongolia, South Korea, Qatar, most
of Europe, Mexico and South America, as well as throughout the
United States. He tours regularly with the critically acclaimed
American Indian Dance Theater and has served as a Dance Captain
and performer.
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He most recently completed
a contemporary world premiere Opera hosted by Opera Omaha in
Omaha, Nebraska. There he was Assistant Dance Director and worked
with Hanay Geigomah, the director of American Indian Dance Theater
and professor at UCLA, renowned Opera director Rhoda Levine,
Pulitzer Prize winning poet/Librettist Yusef Komunyakka, and
Grammy award winning composer, Anthony Davis.
He was also able to lecture
at various universities and schools in the area as part of Opera
Omaha’s outreach program. Other tours include traveling
with the group Spirit: The Seventh Fire as well as serving as
a consulting choreographer to the 2002 Winter Olympic Opening
Ceremonies where he worked with a cast of 600 native dancers
and singers.
He has a BA in Philosophy
and has currently finished coursework in a Masters of Fine Arts
program at UCLA where he studied federal Indian law. He worked
as a summer law clerk for a securities litigation firm in Los
Angeles and has been accepted and enrolled in the Sandra Day
O’Conner School of Law at Arizona State University.
Dallin is grateful for
the gifts, talents, and opportunities afforded him and hopes
to offer those experiences for the education and enjoyment of
others. “I have learned so many values and life lessons
from the cultural structure of our song and dance; it has made
me who I am today. It is up to God to decide in what way He chooses
to bless our lives, it is up to us to decide in what ways we
will use those blessings to serve others.”
About the Art:
Ledger art
derives from a tradition that used pictographic codes to keep
historical records and serve as mnemonic reminders for storytelling.
The pictographs were originally inscribed on rocks and painted
on buffalo robes, shields, lodges, and tipis. Warriors painted
their historic deeds on their buffalo robes and tipis to designate
their positions in the tribe. When U. S. fur companies, settlers,
and cavalry destroyed the buffalo herd, the warriors turned to
ledger books with balance sheets used to record white profits
made from Indian losses.
Soon the warrior-artists
started to record council scenes and scenes from daily life on
ledger pages to grapple with and interpret their changing condition.
The resulting layering reflects the complicated dynamics of Indians
going through various stages of traumatic historical change,
attempting to preserve their history, resist white authority
and power, negotiate tribal and individual identity, and, as
the tradition has been adapted by contemporary artists, make
political statements.
The most remarkable and
important ledger books were produced by Plains Indian warriors
imprisoned in Fort Marion Plains Indian warriors imprisoned in
Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, from 1875 to 1878.
Modern artists continue
to perpetuate ledger art as a fine art form, capturing and reconnecting
with the past through traditional and contemporary mediums.
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