Ladykabbaz

Born and raised in NYC with roots descending from Kodiak, Alaska to Sri-Lanka @Ladykabbaz explores various breath works through blending ancestral chants.

About the Opening Ceremony: Calling supreme vital awareness (Llam Sua, Sugpiat creation) into alignment through abstract “call & response”. Vital forms of awareness are encouraged to call about personal arrival into the shared entry space. 

Short history : A Kik Sadi man married a Koniag woman, became part of Sugpiat (from Kodiak Alaska) community and learned songs and dances. When his sugpiaq wife passed, he moved back to Sitka and shared with his community a series now known as the “Ancestors Series”. While Koniags stopped dancing due the banning of savage/barbaric traditions - the Kik.Sadi kept the chants alive. They brought them back when it was safe enough to rekindle dancing and chanting which the Kodiak Alutiiq dancers have been doing since the 80s. 

Since the beginning of the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic Lady Kabbaz has been training in Ayurveda (life sciences) under the socially distant guidance of Dr. Naina Marballi. The understandings of the 5 elements (space, AIR, fire, water, earth)  within and around have been heavily impacted by the training received through Ayurveda world.

 5 intervals of 1:08 seconds. Each acknowledged by a bell.

 1st bell - opens the space w/ chakra cleansing, starting the transmission of the vessel & filling the space with sound before presence.

 2 bell - acknowledges the 7 directions : North, south, east, west, above, my center  & below. the wind moving through each one with eagle feathers gifted from grandmother upon child birth.  

 3 bell - channels the ancestor series, a call and RESPOND chant preserved by the Kik.sadi of Sitka, with special thanks to Herman and Vita Davis. 

 Bell 4 - honors the space w/ supreme awareness within & around 7 directions ...

 Bell 5 - closes the channel washes from incense burning - closes channel and makes way for the next wave.

Kelly Ashton Todd  

Kelly Ashton Todd is a director, producer, choreographer and environmental activist. She has been featured in contemporary dance works by Robert Battle, Doris Humphrey, Kuperman Brothers, Sharon Eyal, zoe|juniper, Johannes Weiland, and Punchdrunk. She currently resides in NYC and performs with the critically-acclaimed, award winning off-broadway show Sleep No More. Along with performing, she also teaches Mindfulness, Environmental Science, Health and Wellness, and Sex Ed at Waterfront Montessori in Jersey City, NJ. ~ Todd’s choreography has been showcased nationally and internationally in Texas, New Mexico, California, Maine, New York., Germany, and Poland. She has been commissioned by renowned architect, Steven Holl and the critically-acclaimed immersive experience Meow Wolf. Todd has taken part in residencies through Arts on Site, Keshet Makers Space, and Open Wabi. She has been awarded the Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Puffin Foundation Grant, Walmart E-commerce, LEIMAY Fellowship, and the NYFA Fellowship in Choreography. Her environmental dance film series, Under Review, has won awards for Most Inspirational Film and Best Narrative and has attended over 12 film festivals nationally and internationally. Her environmental dance activism has been curated into installations through the Human Impacts Institution and New York Restoration Project. 

About Dance Installation ‘Nest’:  Through the lens of a bird, Nest intertwines livability within the city while questioning the day-to-day support of our governance and wellbeing. With live improvised accompaniment on upright bass from Christiaan van Voorst van Beest, the music evokes the sounds of nature as it struggles within its urban environment. Mirroring the building of a nest, the performance pushes moments of quiet and stillness while surrounded by cityscape.

Sparrowhawk

Sparrowhawk, Transcendental Story Artist, bases his life and art in accordance to his own saying; “Aspirations, Visions & Dreams are only Illusions until we are brave enough to give them Shape & Form into Reality.” He brings roots and primordial traditions into the art of our time with Paintings & Sculptures aka “tangible illusions,” and Transcendental Story Telling performance. Sparrowhawk’s sources of inspiration and muses come from the petroglyphs, philosophies, and stories of his ancestors and the energies of every unique soul he meets. For more up-to-date content from the artist, be sure to check out his work here.

About the Closing Ceremony: Sparrowhawk’s Eagle Dance speaks for itself.

Fritjof Capra

Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., is a scientist, educator, activist, and author of many international bestsellers that connect conceptual changes in science with broader changes in worldview and values in society. A Vienna-born physicist and systems theorist, Capra first became popularly known for his book, The Tao of Physics, which explored the ways in which modern physics was changing our worldview from a mechanistic to a holistic and ecological one. Published in 1975, it is still in print in more than 40 editions worldwide and is referenced with the statue of Shiva in the courtyard of one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research: CERN, the Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva.

Over the past 30 years, Capra has been engaged in a systematic exploration of how other sciences and society are ushering in a similar shift in worldview, or paradigms, leading to a new vision of reality and a new understanding of the social implications of this cultural transformation.His most recent book, The Systems View of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2014), presents a grand new synthesis of this work—integrating the biological, cognitive, social, and ecological dimensions of life into one unified vision. Several critics have suggested that The Systems View of Life, which Capra coauthored with Pier Luigi Luisi, Professor of Biology at the University of Rome, is destined to become another classic.Capra is a founding director of the Berkeley-based Center for Ecoliteracy, which is dedicated to advancing ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education, and serves on the faculty of the Amana-Key executive education program in São Paulo, Brazil. 

The main focus of Capra’s environmental education and activism has been to help build and nurture sustainable communities. He believes that to do so, we can learn valuable lessons from the study of ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms.