The Vision: To Produce an Indigenous Cultural Exchange and Festival By the People and For the People!
This year, on October 24, 2014, DANCING EARTH & AUDIOPHARMACY PRESCRIPTIONS to bring the Bay Area's first SEEDS & SOUL: Indigenous Cultural Exchange & Festival!
SEEDS & SOUL is an indigenous-led, women-led project harnessing the power of music, performance, arts, nourishing food, as well as respectful cultural and knowledge exchanges to strengthen bridges among Indigenous peoples of the Bay Area—rural and urban; local and diasporic.
We're calling on our communities to help bring the dream for this festival to life!
COMMUNITIES COLLABORATING are the KEY to making a dream like SEEDS & SOUL come to LIFE!
Donate to the vision: http://tinyurl.com/seedsandsoul <3
What is the SEEDS & SOUL Festival? <3 We are asking for your financial support to produce a community festival, with donation-based admission. This festival brings together the arts, food, performance, and indigenous culture & knowledge exchange in the Bay Area. SEEDS & SOUL dares to celebrate the DIVERSITY of indigenous identities, to provide a platform for critical dialogue, UNITY and alliance-building among communities, and to strengthen RESILIENCE in our communities in these times of rapid social and environmental change.
THE LOCATION
Our desired locations include Joaquin Miller Park & Lake Merrit Park in Oakland. We are open to other venue opportunities that can hold the sacred space for our intentions, but in the mean time, the SEEDS & SOUL team will focus on bringing the festival to these locations.
PROPOSED DATE
We intend for SEEDS & SOUL : Indigenous Cultural Exchange and Festival to be held on Indigenous People's Day, Sunday, October 11, 2015. Originating in the bay area, this holiday highlights the multiple practices of resilience and resistance that Native peoples’ manifest, especially in art, activism and performance. October 11 is also the day following Berkeley’s annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day Pow Wow, and the day prior to the yearly Indigenous Peoples’ Sunrise Gathering on Alcatraz. To top it off, October is also Filipino American History and Heritage Month, so it's a lively month for celebrating the rich cultural diversity of many indigenous disasporas!
The festival will enliven and INDIGENIZE the outdoor and indoor spaces of a special location by animating the area with Indigenous intention, rooted in honoring of the original peoples of the Bay Area, as well as incorporating intertribal philosophies about relationships and treaty making as an example of reciprocal agreements and responsibilities in caring for (rather than just inhabiting and using) space and place. The gathering will invite audience and community participation in a range of activites, including dance, movement, music, and spoken word. SEEDS & SOUL will also include a lineup of local, independent musicians, DJs and performers on the festival grounds during the day. In addition, there will be community-facilitated and engaged panels and workshops, Indigenous arts, and community vendors on site. The festival will culminate with performances produced by Dancing Earth: Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations and Audiopharmacy Prescriptions. Because Dancing Earth’s methodologies ask performers to draw upon their surroundings as inspiration for movement and intention, the site itself becomes incorporated into these performances. Audiopharmacy Prescriptions will also organize to create an organic-interactive art installation based on the themes of the festival.
SEEDS & SOUL is dedicated to providing a creative, inclusive, and welcoming environment for Native and non-native audiences. We will promote these goals through centering activities that invite active participant engagement. The festival is a model for how art, dance, and music provide the tools for community resilience and social change. Education and artistic expressions at the festival will raise awareness about issues that affect Native and non-native peoples, such as environmental sustainability. Indigenous knowledge and histories will be shared respectfully and on their own terms.
Cultivate the SEEDS & SOUL Festival in the Bay Area!
Donate to our People-Powered campaign! http://tinyurl.com/seedsandsoul All Donations are Tax-deductible! And we're offering some life-enriching PERKS!
Written by Jo "love/speak" Cruz, love/speak productions