Earth Celebrations’ ECOLOGICAL CITY 2021 PROMO VIDEO
Ecological City – Opening Ceremony – EARTH CELEBRATIONS – 638 East Sixth Street (btw Aves B & C)
11th STREET EAST SIDE OUTSIDE GARDEN @ 11th St. NE Corner btw. 1st and Ave. A
PERFORMANCE – Compost Song – Nate & Hila
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Compost
NATE & HILA – Nate and Hila are an artistic duo creating music videos and live shows about environmental philosophy and social justice. They’re based in NYC, and are the resident rappers at Brooklyn’s House of Yes. 2020 saw the debut of their original live show Naughty for Nature, a musical exploration of the sexual behavior of animals, which received write-ups in Billboard and Sierra Club Magazine.
EL SOL BRILLANTE GARDEN @ 12th Street btw. Aves A & B
PERFORMANCE – Dance to the People “Birth of a Garden”
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Upcycling & Sustainable Solutions
DANCE TO THE PEOPLE is a female and immigrant led collective of dancers and other collaborators who work in non-hierarchical forms of art making to address social and environmental injustice. With each project we discover innovative ways to develop content and structures of movement research, choreography, training, performance and sharing, fostering horizontality in the exchange of resources in our community. We create together because we believe revolutionary art can only manifest itself through collective processes.
Performer Credits: Maira Duarte, Michelle Applebaum, Joanna Stone, Nicole Touzien, Annie Hudson.
CHILDREN’S WORKSHOP SCHOOL
@ 610 E. 12th Street (btw. Aves B & C)
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Art & Science Education
PERFORMANCE – “Scrappy the Compost Monster”- By Susanna Brock, Jessica Cortez, and Emily Baldwin
Susanna, Jessica, and Emily, Susanna, Jessica, and Emily, are theatre artists who are passionate about creating interactive and educational experiences that address social justice issues. Susanna is a teaching artist and theater maker specializing in puppetry and early learning. Jessica is an educator, fiber artist, and performer. Both Susanna and Jessica are graduates of the CUNY School of Professional Studies MA in Applied Theatre program. Emily is a native New Yorker and will be starting the MA in Applied Theatre program at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London this fall.
CAMPOS GARDEN
@ 12th Street btw. Aves B & C
PERFORMANCE – Poem For Sustainable Urban Agriculture by Steve Dalachinsky
In memory of Steve Dalachinsky (9. 29. 1946 – 9. 16. 2019)
Performed by: Mindy Levokove
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Vertical Farming & Sustainable Agriculture
STEVE DALACHINSKY. Poet & Collagist. He wrote poetry, haiku, music criticism, CD liner notes, travelogues & had a long running column: Outtakes in The Brooklyn Rail. His publications include The Final Nite: A Complete Notes from a Charles Gayle Notebook 1987-2006 (Ugly Duckling Presse); Superintendent’s Eyes (Autonomedia); Reaching Into The Unknown (RogueArt); Flying Home (Paris-Lit-Up); Fool’s Gold (Feral Press); Black Magic (New Feral Press); Where Night and Day become One (great weather for MEDIA) & others along w/ many collaboration CDs w/ musicians such as Matthew Shipp, Joëlle Léandres & The Snobs. He received PEN Oakland National Book Award; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres; Acker Award; Kafka Award & Benjamin Franklin Award
https://www.facebook.com/
MINDY LEVOKOVE a long time friend of Steve and Yuko’s, is honored to read Steve’s poem, today. A multi-media performance poet; a member of the writing groups: Brevitas, and Heresies, she sings for peace and dances for water. Mindy studies and teaches qigong and Tai Chi, and tutors writing students. A 20-plus-years member of the 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden, she curates Poetry and Prose in the Garden. This year she published a poetry collection, Mount Eden Avenue.
9TH STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN PARK
@ 9th Street & Ave. C (NE corner)
PERFORMANCE – ‘Song for Solar & Sustainable Earth’ by Stephan Said
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Solar Micro Grid
STEPHAN SAID is an internationally acclaimed musician and activist whose songs have helped build movements for peace, human rights, and global justice across the world. He is also the host of “borderless,” a docs-series and global movement lifting the voices of people doing amazing things to make a better world. Stephan has been featured in the New York Times, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, NPR, PRI, BBC, NBC, CBS, Democracy Now!, Al Arabiya, ORF, Deutsche Welle, and more.
LA PLAZA CULTURAL GARDEN
@ 9th Street & Ave. C (SW corner)
PERFORMANCES: Birth of Climate Solutions– Global Water Dances, Martha Eddy
PERFORMERS: Martha Eddy, Dafna Soltes-Stein, Patti Miss Vernam, Lucy Passaro, Wendy Joseph, Jeonghae Jones.
Birth of a Garden Dance – Dance Entropy – Valerie Green
Pollution Pirates – Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space with Time’s Up, Jim Simopoulos
Battle – Pollution & Covid Monster – Keith Saari
Orator – Armand Ruhlman
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Sustainable Community Culture
VALERIE GREEN – DANCE ENTROPY – “Birth of a Garden” Dance
Valerie Green has been an active dancer, choreographer and teacher in the NYC dance community since 1995. She created her own company, Dance Entropy in 1998, adding a permanent company home in 2005 called Green Space. To date Ms. Green has created 40 dances and 10 evening length works. Her choreography has been seen throughout NYC and Internationally she has taught and performed in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, India, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Slovenia, Sweden Guatemala, Cuba and Canada.
www.DanceEntropy.org
MARTHA EDDY – GLOBAL WATER DANCES NY / Marymount Manhattan College Martha Eddy, CMA, RSMT uses body consciousness to enhance our capacity to protect water and the planet. She is a co-founder of the biennial worldwide environmental dance event www.GlobalWaterDances.
DE COLORES GARDEN
@ 8th Street btw. Aves B & C
PERFORMANCE & GARDENER – Bio-Swale Serenade by Elizabeth Ruf
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Bio-Swale
ELIZABETH RUF MALDONADO is a director, actor, writer, educator, and maker of socially engaged performances across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. With Karl Bateman she is a co-founder of the guitar-and-vocal duo the Head Peddlers. Her work is frequently seen at Theater for the New City (TNC) and in NYC Community Gardens. She is a professor at Boricua College. She holds a Ph.D. in Theater from Columbia University and wrote her dissertation on the theater of Cuba, where she lived for a year. She recently acted as music director and choreographer of “Live Free or Die” from Michael Shenker’s masterwork, A Squatter’s Opera, performed at TNC. A member of the former ABC Garden and Co-founder of De Colores Community Yard on East 8th Street, she has been collaborating with Earth Celebrations as the Community Spirit, Iris the Rainbow, and other roles since the early 1990s and is the mother of one of the Butterfly Children. https://www.
CARMEN’S GARDEN
@ Ave C btw. 8th & 7th St.
GARDENER CEREMONY: Sustainable Garden by Carolyn Ratcliffe
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Permeable Paths
GREEN OASIS GARDEN
@ 8th Street btw. Aves C & D
PERFORMANCE – Butoh – Dance of the Pollinators – Betty T. Kao – 8th Ocean Body
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Pollinator Rain Garden
BETTY T. KAO is an artist and writer, with a background in environmental sciences, integrating these mediums as tools for storytelling. 8th Ocean Body is her collaboration, exploring the integration of science, heritage, mysticism, anthropomorphic objects, and social change. Kao’s work reflects the collective subconscious and the mythos we create. Her art installations and performances have been featured in spaces including La Mama, Catharsis DC, BAX, Bowery Poetry Club, World Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science, and The Museum of Art and Design. She has a BA in environmental studies and visual arts. Kao is an alumni of The Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.Instagram @Be8th_Ocean
https://www.facebook.com/
EL JARDIN DEL PARAISO
@ 4th Street btw. Aves C & D
Wellness Ceremony – Lifestyles of Bioremediation, Symbiosis, Regenerative Culture, and Wellness
PERFORMANCE – Theresa Byrnes – Holistic Healing & Wellness Ceremony presented by Grace Exhibition Space
Song for the Healing of the Earth by Marta Vi
GARDEN – CLIMATE SOLUTION – Holistic Healing & Wellness
GRACE EXHIBITION SPACE: Grace Exhibition Space in the East Village is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging works by the current generation of international performance artists whether emerging, mid-career or established. Our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer. This is how performance art is meant to be experienced and our mission is the glorification of performance art. https://www.grace-
Vision 2020 LES : GES & Perma-Culture. An exploration of the intersections of Performance Art and Perma-Culture: Promoting lasting natural habitats through our community of performance artists and community activists. Supported by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council
THERESA BYRNES Theresa Byrnes’s 36 year, multi-disciplinary career as a painter and performance artist traces a journey toward biodegradable art making. Byrnes examines the moment of action, of impact in painting, finding mastery of freedom in its purist state, in the mistake. She steps into marking a splash, daub or spill and invokes a relentless drive to break through and inhale the unexpected. Instagram @TheresaByrnes Facebook.com/
MARTA VI is a self taught artist through living, since the 80’s. I work with all medias, growing up in an environment where everything was recycled made me develop skills that gave me the perspective I have today. I like to work with natural and recyclable materials to create new pieces in an effort to help solve the waste problem. As a singer, I like to improvise, working with my surroundings and emotions. And in that line I explore the lights and shades of emotion through voice and sounds.
PARQUE DE TRANQUILIDAD
@ 4th Street btw. Aves C & D
PERFORMANCE & GARDENER – Marcia Newfield – Poem for Elizabeth St Garden
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Carbon Sequestration
6TH STREET AVENUE B COMMUNITY GARDEN
@ 6th Street btw. Aves A & B (SW corner)
PERFORMANCE – “Water Song” Singer: Lee Taylor
GARDENER – Amy Bercov
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Water Harvesting Pond & Rain Barrel
LEE TAYLOR is a singer/songwriter based in New York City. Writing and performing in a wholly unique style, Lee dazzles audiences with her blues, jazz, pop and gospel. Her voice has been described as “distinctive” by legendary bassist Darryl Jones (The Rolling Stones, Miles Davis), “uncommon” by The Memphis Commercial Appeal, and as “a voice to cut diamonds” by The Canberra Times. www.loveleetaylor.com |
2:30 EARTH SCHOOL (PS364)
@ 6th Street btw. Aves B & C Ave B (SE corner)
PERFORMANCE – Nate & Hila – Green Roofs Song
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Green Roof
EARTH SCHOOL In 1992, teachers in Manhattan’s East Village founded the Earth School on a dream: to create a peaceful, nurturing place to stimulate learning in all realms of child development intellectual, social, emotional and physical. Visit the Earth School today and see how that dream has flourished. Today it is a thriving community of over 300 children in pre-kindergarten through grade 5 with a teaching staff dedicated to the founding values of hands-on exploration, an arts-rich curriculum, responsible stewardship of the Earth’s resources, harmonious resolution of conflict, and parent-teacher partnership. https://sites.
6BC BOTANICAL GARDEN
@ 6th Street btw. Aves B & C
PERFORMANCE – Our Community Garden – Jenny Amanda Hurwitz
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Botanical Diversity
JENNY AMANDA HURWITZ (with SAMIROSE and TALBOT “TOP”KATZ) has been writing, strumming & singing her politically progressive/feminist Subversive Pop songs for decades. Today she may be joined by husband Talbot Katz, who has been active in New York City Friends of Clearwater for decades and who writes, sings and plays a mean bass; and daughter SamiRose Katz who is very concerned about the animals of this earth, creates videos, and writes and sings songs in her own right. Check out some informal videos of Jenny, SamiRose & Talbot’s work at the YouTube Channel: Jenny Amanda Hurwitz – and by searching on YouTube for: Jenny Amanda Hurwitz at PeoplesMusicNetwork. We are also on Facebook and so is PMN. Contact at: subvpop7@gmail.com
6TH STREET COMMUNITY CENTER
@ 6th St btw. Aves B & C
– Children’s Bee Roof Farm Ceremony & Zero Waste Performance
STEWARD of SUSTAINABILITY – Howard Brandstien
CLIMATE SOLUTION – Rooftop Bee Farm, Zero Waste & CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
SIXTH STREET COMMUNITY CENTER
Located in a lovingly restored former synagogue in the heart of the Lower East Side, also known as Loisaida. the Sixth Street Community Center has been working to empower the community through grassroots organizing since 1978. We offer a variety of programs and events including free arts, writing and gardening after school and summer programs for local youth; affordable adult workshops, donation-based yoga, zumba, and dance classes; a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA); poetry and open mic nights; and much, much more. Whether you’re interested in learning more about what we have to offer, hoping to join the CSA, or hungering for a fresh, organic juice on-site at our Organic Soul Café, our doors are always open. We are located at 638 E Sixth Street. Just stop by! http://www.
EAST RIVER PARK SITE 1
@ Waterfront Near 6th Street Bridge Area
PERFORMANCE – River Revival – Artichoke Dance Company
STEWARDS OF THE EAST RIVER PARK – East River Park Action Poem – Eileen Myles
East River Park ACTION is a grassroots community group determined to avert an environmental disaster that is the East Side Coastal Resiliency plan that will demolish East River Park starting in the fall of 2020. Formed less than a year ago by Pat Arnow and other neighborhood residents, more than a thousand people have signed on to demand a flood control plan that provides immediate interim flood control and a long-term plan that will retain existing parkland and biodiversity. https://
LYNN NEUMAN – ARTICHOKE DANCE COMPANY – Artichoke Dance Company, directed by Lynn Neuman, works at the intersections of performance innovation, environmental activism, education, community building and civic engagement. The company is known for onsite performances and hands on upcycling workshops, particularly trashion, fashion made from trash. Recent commissions include the Soraya, connecting California State University to Los Angeles River revitalization, the National Gallery of Art for Voices of the Ocean project, and Waterfront Alliance to celebrate the Bicentennial of the Erie Canal. The Gowanus Canal, New York City’s first named superfund site, is a focus of Artichoke’s local work with biannual festivals occurring along the canal. Ms. Neuman is a national leading eco-artist and the only choreographer to be awarded a Marion International Fellowship. Lynn is also an Association of Performing Arts Professionals Leadership Fellow and was featured in Dance Magazine for her ecological activist work. www.artichokedance.org @
EAST RIVER PARK SITE 2
@ Circular Maze (Labyrinth Pavement Painting by Diana Carulli near Houston Street)
East River Park Coalition: www.facebook.com/
PERFORMANCE – Death & Rebirth of a River – Octavia Dance Cup
Choreography: Laura Ward
Dancers: Cassie Roberts Rossi, Fiona Oba, Natalia Wodnicka, Eva Janiszewski, Juliette Janiszewski, Laura V Ward
STEWARDS OF THE RIVER PARK – East River Park Coalition- Labyrinth Artist, Diana Carulli
VISUAL ART – Pre York River Blankets & East River Dance – Cal Fish with Kate Williams
LAURA VICTORIA WARD, BA, CMA, RSME, is an award-winning choreographer, Laban Movement Analyst, teacher, and artist. She is the artistic director of Octavia Cup Dance Theatre (founded in 1998) and the Glam Rock Cabaret (2018). She is also a member of the punk rock band the Dick Pinchers. https://octaviacup.
EAST RIVER PARK COALITION is a dynamic group of local artists, organizations and community members who realize the immense value of East River Park to New York City. Together, East River Park Coalition is working to raise awareness of the park as a vital link to the East River waterfront and a free multi-use public space for the densely populated Lower East Side. Working in and beyond the park, we are reaching out to local youth, the creative community and citizens groups to design enlightening activities and share knowledge about this park’s unique history and potential. www.facebook.com/
CAL FISH AND KATE WILLIAMS, On top of a series of soft sculpture blankets informed by ecologies along the Pre York or Hudson River, Cal and Kate dance through a 4.5 hour performance that uses kinesthetic sound sculpture, collaborative choreography, and East River Park. Cal Fish (they/them) is a cross disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn and manages the Living Gallery. Kate Williams (she/her) is a Brooklyn based choreographer and mover. @cal._.fish www.
EAST RIVER PARK SITE 3
@ Waterfront Under the Williamsburg Bridge
PERFORMANCE – Dance “East Side Coastal Resiliency” with Infinite Movement.
Director: Shaheeda Yasmin Smith
STEWARDS OF THE RIVER – Waterfront Alliance
SHAHEEDA YASMEEN SMITH (Infinite Movement) has been empowering youth and families through the arts and wellness for twenty years in NYC for twenty years. Book and street smart, she attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, attended City College of New York, is a certified dance and movement therapist and is now pursuing her Masters in Social work at Fordham University. She has dedicated her life to teach, mentor, connect and organize around social issues. Her experience with LES settlement houses and GOLES aides in moving the needle of injustice through the arts and activism. As the CEO and founder of Infinite Movement, her mission is to alleviate the negative effects of trauma and social injustice through the arts and wellness to underserved communities and families. IMI customizes programming to support the needs of all genders and generations,to propel community voice and create change. https://www.facebook.
EAST RIVER PARK SITE 4
@ Seal Park near Grand St
PERFORMANCE – Plastic Harvest – Choreographed by Jody Sperling
STEWARDS OF THE RIVER – Lower East Side Ecology Center – Melinda Billings
A NYC-based dancer-choreographer, JODY SPERLING is the Artistic Director of Time Lapse Dance. She has created 45+ works and is considered the preeminent exponent of the style of modern-dance pioneer Loïe Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling earned a World Choreography Award nomination for her work on the French feature film “The Dancer” (2016 Cannes Film Festival). In 2014, Sperling participated in a polar science mission–as the first choreographer-in-residence aboard a US Coast Guard icebreaker–and danced on Arctic sea ice. Currently, she is developing a performance practice called eco-kinetics that cultivates the relationship between the dancing body and the environment.
Steward of the River – THE LOWER EAST SIDE ECOLOGY CENTER is a non-profit organization working toward a more sustainable New York City by providing community-based recycling and composting programs, developing local stewardship of green space, and increasing community awareness, involvement and youth development through environmental education programs. Also known as Outstanding Renewal Enterprises, Inc., we were founded in 1987. The Ecology Center offers services and education for a range of environmental subjects: organics collection/composting, electronic waste recycling, and stewardship of public green spaces. Lesecologycenter.org
EAST RIVER PARK SITE 5
@ WATERFRONT – Near amphitheater at Cherry Street
PERFORMANCES – East River Park Homage: River Cleansing and Closing Ceremony
Shakti – Dance by Lynn Needle – Art of Motion
LYNN NEEDLE (AOM/AOMDT) , RYT/500 Founder/Artistic Director of Art of Motion, Inc. – a non-profit and home to The Art of Motion Dance Theatre has toured to six out of seven continents and almost all United States as a former soloist with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. A recipient of numerous awards and grants including an Andrew W. Mellon CEF Grant for her artistry and teaching at The Universidad de Colima, Lynn’s work celebrating Legend, Myth & Nature has been presented internationally in site-specific venues. AOMDT.org
Bio-Remediation Sculpture Offering by Dee Maucher – MOS Collective
DEE DEE MAUCHER – MoS COLLECTIVE
DEE DEE is an investigator solutionist at the Masters of Succession Collective (MoS), where we invent lifestyles that leave a better trace and a spiral of serendipities — instead of degradation. As a multidisciplinary artist, last year she exhibited MoS Collective’s regenerative pathfinding work as a pedagogy called “Microbes to Metropolis”. It is a 6-step experiential process with art, performative expression, imaginative activities & hands on maker space for bioremediation. Also, MoS is home of the EM-1 beneficial mud balls. (EM-1 is an effective microorganism inoculant that cleans water) with science consultant, Shig Matsukawa. Dee Dee has introduced the mudballs at a TedX talk, taught mycoremediation at NYU Gallatin, Parsons/New School, LES grade schools and 7 Figments with the collective. As a Creative Director for corporate clients, Dee Dee has designed ecological lifestyle systems complete with branding: such as a living tree house at Sony music, a revitalization plan for Lake Anne Village, “restorative eco systems” for merchants & 6th St Community Center. She “accumulates” to grow and to make sculptures & costumes restorative. As a performance maker, she embodies movement stories through Butoh, with Maureen Fleming she studied. She is passionate about helping people manifest their creative regenerative projects. In succession we become in relationship as symbiotic networks that lengthen healthy supply chains and resource flows so we can be a better circular spiraling co-creation w the forces of nature not against them. She has a PDC from the Center for Bioregional Living, BFA Syracuse Ad Design & Media arts. Currently, MoS Collective needs your help to activate YOUR diverse lifestyle offering that will set in motion an abundance cascade for our outside and virtual plazas. She is partnering with Earth Celebrations’ Ecological City to accumulate, make, grow and install this bioremediating floating sculpture (BFS), consultation by Paul Mankiewicz, Ph.D., a restorative culture activity. A lifestyle design that creates the by-product of the beneficial succession of air, water, soil and selves. Moscollective.net @mos_collective
STEWARDS OF THE EAST RIVER PARK – Gaia Institute- Paul Mankeiwicz & Friends of Corlears Hook Park – Donald Harley
THE GAIA INSTITUTE is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation. Our work couples ecological engineering and restoration with the integration of human communities in natural systems. While much environmental engineering has the worthy aim of minimizing harm, the Gaia Institute explores, through research and development, design and construction, how human activities and waste products can be treated to increase ecological productivity, biodiversity, environmental quality, and economic well-being. The purpose of The Gaia Institute is to test through demonstration the means by which the ecological components of backyards, communities, towns and cities, as well as watersheds and estuaries, can be enhanced through integrated wastes-into-resources technolo