Reflections on the 2014 Integrative Arts Festival
Last month’s Life.Art.Being. Integrative Arts Festival: restoring intimacy with our world, was full of deep learning. Here are my reflections from the time I spent at the Festival.
This year’s festival had four workshops: Active Hope, Deep Play, Authentic Movement, and Waking Up to the World and three pop-out events: a Panel Discussion called Earth Body/Body Story, a Full Moon Drum Circle, and a Feast of Perception: Performance Salon and Potluck. I’ll do my best to pithy (like Elizabeth in her closing words) in sharing about each!
Dan Miller performing an improvised word and movement piece, which in part, expressed gratitude for the umdze-stand stage.
Active Hope with Barbara Ford
Beginning in gratitude, we strengthen ourselves for rituals of grieving for the pain in the world. Gathering the gifts of our ancestors and descendants, we can imagine the world we want to create and visualize a pathway to that future.
For more info on Barbara, please see Blue Earth cd now available, 6-week Active Hope workshop in September with Chris Johnstone, The Work that Reconnects in Corvallis this October.
Authentic Movement with Mary Seereiter
The origami of the human development is full of wisdom that the body still inhabits. We can listen, feel, and move with that wisdom. As Movers, we can name our experience and reflect the feeling and the emotion, coming to greater awareness of our inherent embodied wisdom.
Mary is currently teaching Embodied Anatomy at Yoga Shala and more.
Deep Play with Damaris Webb
Supporting each other’s solo journeys into kinesthetic delight can take many forms: 5 ways of seeings, 4 postures, a red square, object allies, and allies of repetition, slow motion, stillness, and sensation. Meditation can be a touchstone — a way to gather the breath, the mind, and the body before embarking into movement exploration.
Barbara Ford, Mary Seereiter, Damaris Webb, and Abbey Pleviak during the Earth Body / Body Story Panel Discussion
Damaris Webb just returned from the Deep Play: Dance Art Lab Practice with Barbara Dilley at Naropa University. She’s always cultivating her avant garden with lawn luncheons, spontaneous neighborhood parades, and the like. To find out what she’s up to now, check out her website.
Waking Up to the World with Lisa Stanley
Waking to the world begins with waking to the body and waking to the senses. Slowing down all these processes and maintaining curious gentle attention, there are brilliant glimpses of the fullness tucked away in every moment of sensation.
Lisa Stanley is getting back into her work life after being in a quiet space of healing and recovery from her recent kidney surgery. The next chance to study with Lisa is coming up fast with this All Levels Ikebana Class.
Panel Discussion: Earth Body/Body Story
Kiri Bear during her encore performance of “The Calling”
“We can change the world just by being who we are.” We are who we are when we allow ourselves to be present with ourselves, when we trust what we see and what we feel, and when we put our gifts to the service of the greater good. Seeing that we are part of the whole allows for the introduction of surprising emergence from the unknown. One wonderful emergence during the Panel Discussion was the synchronistic presence and sharing by Australian visitor Kiri Bear of her poem “The Calling.”
Full Moon Drum Circle
Speaking of emergence….. the Full Moon Drum Circle was magical, gentle, then wild with the wilderness of the Cosmos called down in heartbeats, melody lines, and dancers drawing in the spirits. Giddy calls and calming calls quieting down into the sounds of crickets and thunder rumbling — earthen creatures healing, holding, being together, and allowing for emergence from the individual and the whole.
Feast of Perception: Potluck and Performance Salon
Megan Phillips, Robin Standley, Wendy Allegaert, Dana Ten Broeck, and Ted Owen opened the Performance Salon with a Spontaneous Group Performance
O what a feast! We had all kinds of foods — savory and sweet, and all kinds of performance — savory and sweet! There was poetry, improvisational movement, an impromptu band, solo singers with guitar and banjo, and quite a few clowns!
Gratitude
My final note is a return to gratitude.
Elizabeth Russell of Be Space never fails to amaze me with her deep intellect, wisdom and heart. I am so thankful for having gotten to experience this wonderful festival she curated.
Elizabeth Russell reads a poem for the ocean.
Amy Aycrigg and Caitlin Bargenquast were so kind, graceful, and skillful in
Amy Aycrigg and her rose and cairn Ikebana perform a poem about time.
holding all the roles they took on both as Shambhala Arts Council members extraordinaire and also as coordinators, hosts, and poets during the festival. Special thanks to Caitlin for all the photos she took, which are featured in this post.
I also want to recognize our Shambhala Volunteers! Many Shambhala Warriors answered the call for help and were on the spot with their generosity, exertion, and kindness, creating a warm container for the Life.Art.Being participants who visited the Center during the festival! Many thanks to you all!
Also, special thanks to Ashely Gillies, visiting from Vancouver, BC, who helped in so many ways, and especially as co-host of the Feast of Perception.
May it benefit all beings!
Abbey Pleviak and Ashley Gillies after waking from a Sacred Power Nap while hosting the Feast of Perception Performance Salon.
