The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and UH Hilo present Martha Redbone in Bone Hill: The Concert. A new musical work for theater, Redbone and a cast of actor-musicians present an epic journey of one woman’s return to her homeland. Inspired by Redbone’s family lineage in the Appalachian Mountains, the piece spans the lives and stories of four generations of women in a Cherokee family. It is a story about the family’s connection to the land—the simplicity and sacredness of that connection and the ruptures that threaten to extinguish it.
- UH Mānoa Orvis Auditorium, October 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Call (808) 956-8246 or buy online - UH Hilo Performing Arts Center, October 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Buy online
The charismatic songstress is celebrated for her tasty gumbo of roots music—the folk and country sounds of her childhood in the Appalachian Mountains and the Kentucky mixed with the eclectic grit of her teenage years in pre-gentrified Brooklyn. With her gospel singing father’s voice and the spirit of her Cherokee/Choctaw mother’s culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of Americana.
Written by Redbone, Aaron Whitby and Roberto Uno, who directs the piece, with original compositions by Redbone and Whitby, the music is radically wide-ranging, from traditional Cherokee chants and lullabies to bluegrass and blues, country, gospel, jazz, rock and roll, rhythm n’blues and funk.
Beyond reflecting the cultural and aesthetic diversity of today’s music and theater, Bone Hill: The Concert adds diverse missing narratives. It reveals erased, forgotten truths and it does so with humor, pathos and exuberance.
