Monday, September 2, 2013

Dance as Community

Call for Peace Drum and Dance Company
Dance is a communicator, it tells "story;" dance builds community.

This brand new 3rd edition of "Words and Violence" features Performance Arts as a catalyst for change, for compassion, for human evolution in “story” conveyed:
  • Through the force of words
  • Through the eyes of art
  • Through the language of movement,
  • Through the magic of film
  • Through the magic of storytelling via “song.”
It’s part of the movement toward a new narrative on the planet– one that is compassionate, responsible and deliberately created. WE write the script. WE perform the dance and dramas. WE sing the world into being. WE are the narrators and the narrative. WE tell the story of the world. The world is a performance! Our performance!

The world is a vectoring of what we dance.

It’s the collective performance of humanity, a work-in-progress. The soundtrack of your life is the soundtrack of the planet. What lyrics do you want to sing? What dance do you want to dream? What live play do you want to perform? What motion picture do you want to create the world to be? What song do you want to join to sing the world into being? What new language do you want to create? What new story of the world do you want to tell?

“Words and Violence” is featured front page! We just released the 3rd edition to 120 countries on August 29. The work will help to stem bullying in all its incarnations, where it’s found and where it’s addressed: school, home, media, social justice, political reform  and the arts…  See the front page feature: http://voiceseducation.org/


Speaking of the arts, we felt that the Performing Arts was the perfect place to begin showcasing the antidotes and ways to reverse bullying because we believe the arts, and particularly the performing arts, shows the most promise for changing the paradigm and creating a more humane narrative on the planet.

Introducing the 3rd edition: http://voiceseducation.org/node/5981

New “Performance Arts” section: http://voiceseducation.org/node/5996
(see the list at the bottom of the page or click through the section via the next “title” bottom right)
Contributors: (Updates in progress)  http://voiceseducation.org/node/2487

Borrowing from David Letterman:
Top Ten Ways YOU can help promote “Words and Violence” and Compassionate Voices:

1.       Sharing the links

2.       Blogging about the project

3.       Talking to educators about this resource

4.       Taking it to your school, principal, High School, university, school of journalism or the arts

5.       Using the content in your programs (more than 600 pages of resources)

6.       Making a contribution to Compassionate Voices or asking others to contribute
https://compassionateaction.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=7&reset=1&id=6

7.       Notifying your constituencies about this resource

8.       Becoming a partner: Signing the charter for Compassion: http://compassionateaction.org/partners

9.       Nominate your school, college, organization or city as a compassionate partner http://compassionateaction.org/programs

10.   Become a volunteer or volunteer contributor to “Words and Violence” or recommend someone.   Write to Barbara Kaufmann personally with your ideas. (See email link right sidebar) 

 The Words and Violence materials are free for downloading to educators and interested parties except for products developed by artists featured in the new section (original musical scores, films and accompanying teacher's resources)


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A few Thoughts...

When I think about it, my own life is no less rich and the living no less inspiring than my pioneering ancestors and I come from a long line of Indians and outlaws so don't ever turn your back on me!

Life is, after all, a slice of human consciousness lived from its place in human evolution. "From here to eternity" as it were-- from earth to the stars, from personal space to cyberspace, from a small local footprint to the world reduced to the size of a notebook and sitting on your lap!

As a child I lived with the perpetual and immenent threat of annihilation. That's child abuse! It wasn't a kid-friendly world and I couldn't understand why the grown-ups who were in charge weren't doing something?

So at age seven with my face in the window eyes turned up into the night sky and staring at the stars I made a vow: "When I am a grown-up, I will do something."

My writing is that something and I write to "simply change the world." If that sounds like a lack of humility it isn't because I know that one person absolutely can change the world and I've met some who have.

Kay Kennedy put together an anthology that puts the reader in the midst of history to view it from the inside out.

When I was in high school and even college, history classes were stale and boring featuring memorization and regurgitation of dates that coincided with events that had no human face, certainly no magic, and no life!

Anthologies are great fun and stores are rich remembrances. History books chronicle; stories are little narrative slices of living. History comes alive through story. I often think of my grandmother and her story, her life-- the history she lived. In her lifetime she saw humankind evolve from horse and buggy to man on the moon.

BARBARA'S WORK IN "LOOKING BACK"
I was a sixties kid and for the youth of the sixties, turmoil, disillusionment, and revolution were everyday 'business as usual'. Like a radio perpetually on low volume, fear and death dronned on in the background. The superpowers threatened to extinguish all life on the planet, the Vietnam War was escalating and peers were being escorted home under American Flag blankets. The civil rights and equal rights movements were testing human civility, and faster than one could recover from one shock another real life hero would fall to yet another assassin. Despair was commonplace. Contrast that with a man on the moon... we could conquer space travel but couldn't make nukes or war obsolete! It was a time when youth needed hope because hope was scarce. When it was finally resurrected, it came in the form of idealism and a philosophy of brotherly and universal love. Perfect principles; imperfect execution.

For others who contributed to "Looking Back," the history is different for each because the "times" were different as well as the perspective of the individuals. The stories of human societal evolution are enlightening, heartwarming, poignant and spellbinding. They put a human face on the past.

And there are people now who are putting a face on the future...