Hi All,Here is the latest from Earthdance.JUNE 14 – 28, SEEDS Festival (Somatic Experiments in Earth, Dance, + Science)SEEDS Festival is a unique interdisciplinary summer festival dedicated to arts and ecology. SEEDS features workshops, collaborative design projects, live performances, films, panel discussions, interdisciplinary investigations, and an archiving project. SEEDS cultivates innovative practices, by researching the connections between green, embodiment, justice, interconnectivity, reflection, investigation, art, science, and sacred.SEEDS 2009 will focus on potentiality . Potential for new growth is generated in places where diverse organisms meet. In this year of potential political change, we invite this phenomenon into our interdisciplinary investigations .For full information visit www.earthdance.net/seedsVisit our 2008 Ning site to see more about last years festivalCurators 2009: Olive Bieringa, Melinda Buckwalter, + Margit GalanterBelow is a list of workshops that make up the SEEDS Festival with brief descriptions:SEEDS ScheduleJune 14 - 19 Ritual Dance: Intimate + Universal Spaces with Diego PinonDiego Piñón's Butoh Ritual Mexicano Dance is a creative research practice based around personal experiences, collective symbols, and deep expressive needs. Intense physical training cultivates individual creativity through the use of emotional environments and energetic charges within a supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere. Together, each individual reinforces the exchange and expansion of collective energy in order to realize a communal dance creation.June 14 - 18 Along the Watershed with Simon Whitehead and Jennifer MonsonIn this workshop we shall walk, dance and locate the watershed divide close to Earthdance. We will explore its ecology both as it resides in the movement and scale of this land and in its constant imminence in our lives. The workshop will culminate with a 24-hour dance process and fast, followed by food and a day of performance- making in response to the place and the workings of the watershed.June 14 - 18 Mycoscaping + Ecology of Transformation with Rafter SassLiberation Ecology - Design Studio.What would "sustainability" look like, if it refused to sustain white supremacy? What could "liberation" look like, in a society headed for ecological collapse? Come and help fill in the missed connections between social and ecological strategies, in and environment of creative collaboration.Mycoscaping IntensiveMushrooms everywhere! Food, medicine, bioremediation, and more - fungi have a crucial role to play in creating healthy and abundant landscapes. Come explore the world of wild and cultivated fungi through a holistic permaculture lens. Includes lots of hands-on!June 19, 20, & 21 The Sustainable Landscape R.U.S.T. - Skott KelloggThis is a three-day workshop. It can be taken in its entirety, as a one-day workshop for introductory permaculture principles, or as a two-day weekend workshop for hands-on practice. In this class we will focus on two different systems that can be incorporated into a sustainable landscape: aquatic polycultures(swamp gardens) and compost teas (bio-brews). For the first one, we build an actual pond, and seal it using a method called "gleying". The pond will then be stocked with an array of aquatic plants and animals that can be harvested to make food, fuel and fertilizer, in addition to creating a beautiful water garden that attracts wildlife. We will discuss the many benefits of aquatic polycultures, their use around the world, and how a system could be modified in order to raise fish. Compost tea is a liquid culture of beneficial microorganisms that can be applied as a fertilizer to crops, or be used to remediate contaminated soils. In class, we will brew a tea and analyze it beneath a microscope. Day 1 (Friday) of this class will consist of an overview of these and other sustainable technologies, and day 2 and 3 will be more hands-on oriented, as we do the work of building the pond.June 20 & 21 SEEDS WEEKEND Mini-FestivalThis weekend mini-festival within SEEDS consists of several 3-hour long workshops. There are two themes from which to mix and match. The classes will start Friday evening and continue through Sunday mid-day. You are welcome to come for the whole weekend, or drop in, as well.Green/Body/Local. How might somatic studies create a basis for, inform, expand, and interweave our social and environmental consciousness? These workshops address the body as investigator/mediator of issues concerning environment, ecology, sustainability, and/or social justice. With Sondra Loring + Kavitha Rao (Somatics and Sustainability), Kristin McCardle (Gettin' Your Greeny Green On), Moti Zemelman + Camille Renarhd (Pockets of Resistance), and Karl Kronin (Dry Earth).Contact Improvisation, the Social Experiment Continues. CI, previously described as "confronting comfort culture" and "a political shock absorber," has more recently been called out for its lack of racial diversity. Where is the social experiment at today? These workshops will consider the power of the body in movement to question our social conventions/compositions/hierarchies through the practice of CI. With Neige Christenson (Freeing the Contact Mind), Kerstin Kussmaul ( The Intelligence of your Touch ) , Dan Bear Davis + Sarah Day (Corporeal Permaculture), and Dustin Haug + Tamin Totzke (Redirecting Yes).June 21 - 28 Eco-Art for Everyday Life with Beverly NaidusThis course offers an opportunity both to learn about Eco-Arts and to develop a public project with the guidance of the facilitator. Participants will explore different ways of incorporating eco-art practices into their everyday life and their communities. We will discuss some of the ecological issues facing us both on the local and global level, look at the work of contemporary eco-artists, and develop some collaborative site-specific projects.June 21 - 28 The Prosodic Body - Integrating Interior + Exterior Spaces with Daria Faïn + Robert KocikThrough rigorous warmups and discussion we will trace the interconnectivity of the senses, organs, glands, emotions, and the ways in which language regulates the body. To this end we will draw upon Chi Gong, neuroendocrinology, Chinese 5 Element Theory, and prosody in particular. We will gradually orient ourselves in the external environment by introducing architectural terms. Over the course of the workshop we will draw rudimentary sketches and plans for a building designed for the explicit purpose of integrating interior and exterior environments.June 27 SEEDS PUBLIC COMMUNITY CELEBRATION: This is a full day and evening celebration of investigations that have taken place at SEEDS. There will be performances, classes, presentations, participatory events, and other interdisciplinary surprises for all ages. You are welcome all day or for part. Details TBA
SEEDS is hosted at Earthdance, a dance retreat center in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts featuring two beautiful dance studios, farmhouse, comfortable dorm accomodations, vegetarian cuisine, wood-stove sauna, spring-fed swimming quarry, and 100 acres of magnificent hills.Read more…
