Dancing The Landscape with Frieda Kipar Bay and Dana Iova-Koga


We reside in a living world shaped by reciprocity.  Nature responds to every single thing we do. In this 4-day, immersive workshop, we will center these deep connections between how we move and how we relate to the ecologies we are a part of. We will begin by asking “how do we dance a landscape?”, and “how are we being danced by our landscapes?”  Investigations will occur inside the studio and out, in the beautiful weather of late summer, and we will draw from several primary sources as inspiration.

We will practice:

  • Qigong to attune our listening and understand the fractals at play.
  • Dynamic and rigorous Body Weather crossings to challenge our memory, proprioception and coordination.
  • Improvisational movement scores to play with universal movement principles.
  • Contact Improvisation to deepen our understanding of physical reciprocity.
  • Tracking and plant ID walks on Earthdance to meet the landscape with deeper understanding.
  • Garden work in the ED Garden to practice integrating theory into practical application (while participating and contributing to the ED community).

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the practices of Mindfulness and Embodiment and they are widely accepted as being beneficial in our aspirations of being vibrant, compassionate, responsive human beings. But what about the practice of relating to our environments and landscapes with attention and reciprocity? While equally as vital, it has not yet entered the mainstream consciousness to the same degree.  We will investigate this relationship with place – emplacefulment; it’s not a word, but it’s what we’ll be practicing anyway.


“We know ourselves by knowing the web – the terrain and the weather that we live inside. Think of the body as a landscape, the landscape as a body, and lean in.”  Frieda Kipar Bay

“It is inside a place, and in relation to a place, that we learn to hope.” Anna Badken

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Arrival, Onsite Check-In, Opening Circle, and Departures

  • Arrival and Onsite Check-In: The welcoming will commence for participants on Friday, August 30th from 4:00pm-7:00pm. Dinner is at 6-7pm.
  • Opening Circle: Saturday, August 31st at 10am.
  • Saturday/Sunday Drop-In: Please check-in with an ED Staff person upon arrival between 8-10am. Breakfast is 8-9am.
  • Full House Clean: Monday, September 2nd at 2-3pm (after Lunch from 1-2pm).
  • Departure: All participants will depart after the final group clean at 3pm on Monday, September 2nd.

Our Fees Explained

Earthdance offers a sliding scale payment for participation in this event, please take a moment to reflect as you decide on where you best fit. 

Your level of contribution is self selected and does not need to be advocated for. However, we invite you to remember this contribution is currency and we ask that you stretch where you are able so that those who cannot stretch as far of a financial distance may also have potential access to community events. As you choose your rate please consider the following factors:

  • Your access to income and wealth, as connected to family and partnership, both currently and anticipated in the future.
  • The historical, systemic impacts of wealth accrual based on culture, race and other intersection marginalizations for you and your family.
  • The regional ease of your attendance, while some community members can drive to Earthdance, others will need to consider tuition based on their ability to travel longer distances. 
  • Earthdance is a community and rental funded organization which recently, historically and uniquely through the Covid-19 pandemic has struggled to have viable income.

PRICING

GRATITUDE LODGE

$700 – Financially Wealthy

$575 – Financially Abundant

$475 – Financially Stable

$400 – Financially Coping

$350 – Financially Strained

CAMPING

$675 – Financially Wealthy

$550 – Financially Abundant

$450 – Financially Stable

$375 – Financially Coping

$325 – Financially Strained

COMMUTER

$650 – Financially Wealthy

$525 – Financially Abundant

$425 – Financially Stable

$350 – Financially Coping

$300 – Financially Strained

Drop-In Day Options:

Saturday, August 31st

$450 – Financially Wealthy

$325 – Financially Abundant

$225 – Financially Stable

$150 – Financially Coping

$100 – Financially Strained

Equity & Access Tickets 

Although we’re not able to offer any full scholarships this year, we’re excited to offer up to 4 FULL JAM Equity & Access Discounts to individuals who feel part of an underrepresented and/or marginalized group in CI and have a relationship with CI.  We know that for those who come from marginalized populations showing up to spaces filled with primarily privileged groups can be a challenge, and can feel vulnerable.

APPLY HERE! Application deadline is August 15th.

For those who do not identify as marginalized and are in a represented group of CI, we invite you to stretch in your payment to help support those who cannot stretch and create a more diverse jam experience for all. 

Note: While Earthdance is making efforts to better support Equity & Access at all its events, this jam offers particularly strong support for diversity, equity, and inclusion through:

  • Reduced pricing offered to people self-identifying as being underrepresented and/or marginalized in CI.
  • Classes and discussions that aim to bring up the level of awareness and inclusion at the jam as a whole
  • Affinity spaces (jams, discussions, etc.) for particular groups of people to connect, share CI space together, and rest from the pressures of being in a minority status at the jam.

Housing Options

Gratitude Lodge at Earthdance Tickets

Includes a bed in the Gratitude Lodge, event offerings, and food.

The Gratitude Lodge (a.k.a. the Earthdance dorm) is the main lodging facility, connected to the Farmhouse by a short wooded trail. The lodge includes large and small rooms featuring dormitory-style bunks and beds (twin & queen size) and is included in the base event cost. Beds are available on a first come basis.

Camping Tickets

Includes a spot to camp at Earthdance, event offerings, and food.

Commuter Tickets

You will have access to event offerings including food, but no housing accommodations.

Commuter Health Care: We ask that you please use caution when commuting and limit, if possible, to just commuting to and from your home and Earthdance, staying away from large crowds to maintain the health and well being of the other participants.

Nine Mountain is NOT available

Cancellation Policy

Refund available up to 14 days (August 15th) before the event less a $75 processing fee. 

No refunds available less than 14 days from the start of the event.

Partial refunds might be given if a cancellation takes place under extenuating circumstances (e.g. a death of a 1st or 2nd degree family member, serious non-preventable illness or accident requiring hospitalization). Refunds in such cases remain at the discretion of the local organizers and will be decided on a case to case basis according to the timing of the cancellation and other factors. We do not offer refunds if you catch a cold, the flu or COVID after cancellation dates.

Health Precautions

No specific requirements on vaccination status are needed to attend this event. Please take adequate measures to limit your exposure in the days before arriving. If you are feeling sick, or have a known close exposure to someone with COVID in the past 5 days, please sit this one out to keep the community well. 

COMMUTERS: We ask that you please use caution when commuting and limit, if possible, to just commuting to and from your home and Earthdance, staying away from large crowds to maintain the health and well being of the other Summer Jam participants.

Participant Community Support

Earthdance runs as a​ community, thus part of the participation is that all individuals contribute to 1-2 work shifts (typically meal cleans) throughout the event and participate in a final house clean on the last day of the event. These are great ways to connect more with your fellow participants and Earthdance staff, and to feel more at home in the Earthdance buildings & grounds. Your contributions to this collective caring of this space are invaluable!

Earthdance’s buildings are ADA accessible. More info here.

Earthdance’s Nudity Policy

HOST BIO

Frieda Kipar Bay

Frieda Kipar Bay is a weaver of embodied knowledge, overlapping different threads to better understand the whole.  Movement is the primary lens that she uses to experience life and she works in depth with plant medicine to navigate health and disentangle from oppressive overcultures.  She has been a professional performer and choregrapher since 2001, working with Sara Shelton Mann, Body Cartography, Melecio Estrella, and Scott Wells, among others. In 2008 she pursued training as a clinical herbalist, botanist, and animal tracker and is a registered clinical herbalist with the AHG. She has studied Daoist Medicine diagnostic practices and qigong, wild tending and native plant restoration, and somatic experiencing and trauma resolution. The interface between reading the body and reading the landscape deeply informs her work as a traditional medicine practitioner, activist, and artist.

Find out more at  www.friedakiparbay.net

Dana Iova-Koga

Dana has been a polymorph since an early age. She could never choose between dance, theater, art, photography and writing. Luckily she managed to study them all at the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU. Her formative training in movement was with Japanese dancer Min Tanaka. She lived and worked for several years with him on his farm in the countryside of Japan- dancing, farming and studying nature of all kinds.

Since that time Dana has continued to explore and discover the connections between body and landscape. She has been a member of dance/theater company inkBoat and has been teaching “Dance on Land” with her partner, Shinichi, since 2006. She has been blessed with some of the highest caliber teachers and mentors one could hope for. She had the great fortune of working with dance pioneer Anna Halprin. Dana has studied Chinese Internal Martial Arts for over a decade and is a 17th generation Wudang San Feng Pai lineage holder through her Shifu David Wei of Wudang West. Most recently has been mentored by Jozef Frucek and given the honor of becoming an “Inspired by FM” teacher through Fighting Monkey. She is thrilled to be joining forces with Frieda Kipar Bay as Elemental Vessel. Together they practice researching the elements in the body and the body in the elements.

Dana is forever inspired by the complexity and diversity of life in all its forms, is fascinated by the phenomenon of creativity, and above all enjoys playing in the space occupied by the questions. These days you may find her in the studio, in the garden, on the stage, in the classroom, over the books, with the words, in the water, in the woods, in the kitchen, with her people, among her thoughts, under the sky.

www.danaiovakoga.net

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