Participatory community-created movement art at Earth Day with Victoria of Embodiment LLC!
WHAT IS IT? The structure of this community-created movement event is based on a movement form called a Movement Choir or Sacred Dance. (There is a nice write-up about Movement Choirs available here.) A Movement Choir combines the joy and freedom to dance your Self within the power of the group, benefiting both the mover and the observer.
WHO CAN DO THIS? If you can breathe, you can be a part of this event!
The Movement Choir form invites people of all ages, backgrounds and of all levels of experience and ability to join together in movement. You and I and all our friends, known and not yet known, will be joining together for this short period of time intentionally to share in the community-movement dance we create in this time and in this place.
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? Our purpose for doing this will be to unite in a common place, at a common time to offer a collective embodied prayer of honor and healing to our home and Divine Mother, Gaia, Earth. From the Earth, we were given Life...Movement is Life. The Mandala is a circle, representing Wholeness. We will be moving the wholeness and fullness of Life and Nature as individual bodies and as the body of community!
HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO? The first 15 - 20 minutes of this event will be an opportunity for you to "learn" the simple choreographed nature-inspired movements that will make up the parts of this movement piece. These movements will be chosen to allow for ease to any and all participants who want to join in while also inviting personal expression for each mover. Like in Mandala art, they will be based on basic geometric shapes of Nature. Once the collected individuals and group know the various parts, we will define Beginning and we will define Ending, which is an important piece of understanding necessary for community creating together, for dancers moving together and for the creation of a mandala. Once these foundational pieces are established, and with the supportive rhythm of drum and percussion, together, we will create as the 2018 CoMo Earth Day Mandala Community Movement Choir.
IS THIS A PERFORMANCE? Although there may be people observing us, our purpose is not to perform for those humans, but to create through community movement a conscious connection between ourselves and the Nature of our home planet that includes the movers and the observers, human and otherwise!
WHY DID I CALL IT MANDALA COMMUNITY MOVEMENT? Over the years I have often compared my performance art aesthetic to that of the sand mandala, and it continues to be true in the form of the Movement Choir. Like in creating a mandala, there is a purpose and structure that is often, usually representative of larger more universal patterns and concepts. It involves movement and embodiment that is both physical and sacred. It involves immersing into and transcending the "ordinary." Like the sand mandala which is swept away at the end of its "performance" to represent the impermanence of all phenomena, and to show that everything that exists has a beginning, a middle and an end, our performance art piece will exist only for this time and in this place and with the unique people who join in to be a part. If you'd like to know more about sand mandalas, here is one resource: Drepung Loseling Monks
WHERE? WHEN? We will be gathering at 3 p.m. on the West side of Peace Park in downtown CoMo, north of the creek near 6th street. I plan to be wearing brightly colored flowing clothing and a festive hat, if you do not know who I am or what I look like.
PLEASE NOTE - the time of this event may change as we get closer to the day of. Please check in on Sunday morning so that you know, for certain, when we will be gathering!