University of Saint Joseph Presents MARTHA REDBONE'S BONE HILL: THE CONCERT

Inspired by Martha Redbone's own life and the lives of the women from whom she is descended, the characters from four generations of a family living high on a mountain top in Appalachia tell the stories of the Redbone family in Bone Hill - The Concert at 7:30 p.m., March 17 & 18 at the Autorino Center for the Arts, University of Saint Joseph.

In a communal narrative style interspersed with dramatic scenes and driven by a wide-range of songs, from traditional Cherokee chants and lullabies to bluegrass and blues, country, gospel, jazz, Rock & Roll, Rhythm n Blues, and funk, Bone Hill - The Concert is uncompromising in its desire to be honest about uncomfortable subjects and especially the subject of race in America. After the premiere at Joe's Pub, Public Theater in New York City February 2015 Bone Hill: The Concert has just begun its national tour.

The piece addresses issues and stories rarely heard in musical theater, but beyond reflecting the cultural and aesthetic diversity of today's theater, Bone Hill - The Concert adds diverse missing narratives: racial dynamics between Native and African Americans, Native American and White, stories from the perspective of the women and the lives of people of color living in Appalachia, their culture and music. It reveals erased, forgotten truths and it does so with humor, pathos, and exuberance.

Tickets are $25 for Adults | $20 for Seniors, Let's Go Arts and USJ Alumni| $15 Students with valid ID and can be purchased at the Frances Driscoll Box Office: 860.231.5555 or online at tickets.usj.edu.

Martha Redbone's music flows equally from her own unique, award-winning blend of Native American elements with funk and her deep roots in Appalachian folk and Piedmont blues favored by the matriarchy that raised her on a rich sojourn from Clinch Mountain, Virginia to Harlan County, Kentucky and beyond to Brooklyn's Dodge City-esque mean streets.

Alongside her career as a recording artist and songwriter Martha Redbone has maintained a steady involvement with causes she believes in utilizing her celebrity in Indian Country for fundraising and leadership. Ms. Redbone holds an annual Traditional Music Workshop within the United Houma Nation's Cultural Enrichment Summer Camp program teaching grade school age children the music from her Choctaw and Cherokee heritage as well as incorporating the tribe's own Houma-French language. Redbone's latest music resonates with the influence of southeastern raisin', echoing an earlier time/space through elements of folk, country gospel, stomp chants, and the high lonesome of a front porch Sunday pickin'. http://www.martharedbone.com/

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