Coming soon at the Center for Belonging
Hello Friends!
Here in the Iowa Driftless the spring beauty and daffodils are a’bloom, the robins and red-winged blackbirds have returned, and leaves are budding on many a tree. It’s time to sing praises to spring!
Look below for registrations now open for Shireen Amini and Ahlay Blakely’s song circles, Ida’s day camps, Zac’s basket camp, and Open Hub Singing Club. Also you’ll find here an invitation to consider attending a weekend training for emerging songleaders, Musicland dates, and more.
Let’s find ways to be together.
Liz
Upcoming Events
Come to the woods and circle around the campfire under the gazebo at the Center for Belonging for an evening of singing with Shireen, with Ahlay, and a weekend basketry workshop with Zac. Free rustic camping included!
May 11 | Shireen Amini, Song Circle
Community Song Circle in the gazebo in the woods at the Center for Belonging
Saturday, May 11, 2024 from 6:00 PM 8:30 PM
Free camping!
Join Shireen Amini for a community singing experience rich in soulful truths and joyful liberation. As a leader, bridge-builder, and humble student of the modern community singing movement, Shireen has found her work as a musical artist spiraling toward re-anchoring music as a sacred container in which intergenerational and systemic grief can be felt and expressed. Learn more about the event here.
Ida Rotto’s Red Oak Outdoor School
INTO THE WOODS Day camps: 3 spaces remain for ages 5-6, June 24-28, all others full.
Summer day camps for ages 5-14 start and end the day here at the Center for Belonging gazebo, with adventures in the woods throughout. Out-of-towners whose kids are attending day camp are welcome to camp here at Fern Hollow for no charge.
New this year: Ida and sister Sophie Rog will lead a backcounty singing trip in Driftless Wisconsin for girls aged 11-14! Red Oak Outdoor School supports resilience in youth through connection to self, each other and the natural world. To receive announcements about upcoming camps and classes, you can subscribe to Ida’s newsletter here.
July 20 | Ahlay Blakely, Song Circle
An evening singing in community with songleader Alexandra “Ahlay” Blakely
Saturday, July 20, 2024 from 6:00 PM 8:30 PM
In the gazebo in the woods at the Center for Belonging. Free camping!
We are grateful to host Seattle’s Alexandra "Ahlay" Blakely on her second midwest tour. Ahlay teaches easy-to-learn songs in an a cappella style and the group echoes them back. These songs are sung together collectively as invitations to move stagnated emotions in the body and to be in our bodies as we notice what arises for us as we sing together.
August 3-4 | Zac Fittipaldi, Basket Camp
August 3-4, 9AM - 5PM, BYO lunch, free camping, weaving materials included!
Come spend two days in the gazebo in the woods at the Center for Belonging learning from a master basket maker! This is a project for beginning basket makers, a Black ash berry basket that you can make in a weekend. It's a simple under one/over one design with a spiral weave, lashed on the rim.
Zac Fittipaldi lives in northern Minnesota on the edge of a beautiful lake and has been weaving baskets and teaching basketry for 12 years. Zac grows his own willow and harvests his own ash splints. He creates hex weave, black ash and willow baskets, with the occasional soft twined basswood bag. See more of his work on Instagram.
There are 8 spots total, so sign up today!
Open Hub Singing Club Spring Season | 6 Sundays beginning April 14
Come sing and relax in community, 6 Sunday afternoons from 3:30-5 pm at the Pulpit Rock Brewing Company Events Space! Whether you are an experienced singer or someone new to singing, community singing offers a "no practice, no performance" experience. We celebrate uplifting songs with meaningful messages taught in the simple and ancient aural tradition (learning by ear) so that everyone is singing together in no time. We learn by listening as a group. No singing experience or training is required – just a desire to sing with others! All voices are welcome, including yours!
A Songleader in Every Community!
Are you curious about helping bring more singing to the place where you live? Would you like to explore and practice with other emerging songleaders?
We are being called to once again weave singing into our daily lives. Do you hear the call? In cities, towns, in the countryside. At organizing meetings, rallies, and houses of worship. In parks, backyards, and town squares. On zoom. At folk schools, summercamps, brew pubs, and cideries.
Who can know all the reasons for this gradual shift that now has the power of a movement? Surely we’re lured in by all of the accessible andrelevant songs that people are writing for these times. Then too there’s the epidemic of isolation for which group singing is one of the best antidotes. Whatever all the reasons, we need more people who are rooted in their communities to help teach the songs, and many folks are answering the call. . Some are doing it professionally, others are simply gathering with friends in the backyard. It’s all-hands- on -deck for this next era of singing together for belonging, peace, and pleasure!
Though I have been singing with others my whole life, I did not become a community songleader until when in 2011 I attended the Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria, BC. This 2-week training gave me the encouragement, tools, resources, and connections that helped me step forward as a community songleader. In gratitude for the opportunity and also in recognition that few can afford to attend such a long training so far away that only takes place once annually with 11 people, I created a 2-day Songleader Incubator here at our home in Iowa, an event that has continued over these 12 years.
Then this year an amazing thing happened…
The Folk School Alliance, with a goal of infusing community singing into the culture of more folk schools (Check out “What is a Folk School? to learn more) invited me to travel to folk schools and offer this training.
Of course I said yes!
And so I was at the Driftless Folk School in Viroqua, WI in January; and at Center for Belonging Folk School near Decorah Iowa 🙂 in February; in early April I’ll be in Minneapolis, MN with the people of Danebod Folk School (full), and also near Dubuque, Iowa with the people of the St Isadore Catholic Worker (full); early this fall will be in the Twin Cities (keep your eye on the Center for Belonging newsletter and website for details as they emerge), and in October I’ll be at Folklore Village near Madison, WI (registration here!).
There is full funding available for people who are adjacent to folk schools, as staff, teacher, neighbor, or regular attendees. If that’s you, let us know and you might be able to take one of the free spots!
The whole idea behind this work is that, over the years to come, more and more communities will use community singing as a tool to bring people together across differences to sing about the things that matter to us all.
If you or someone you know would like to be notified of songleader trainings in the coming years, you can let me know by filling out this short form.
I am honored to play a small role in this important and joyful movement of bringing song culture back to our grassroots. Come join me if you’d like!
Here’s some song-candy for you.
I’ve made a list of many of the people who are writing songs for community singing, with links to their websites. Enjoy!
Musicland 2024
This year, Musicland will be held at Dream Acres Farm near Rochester MN from September 20th-22nd. Save the date! Registration will open via this newsletter in late June. Musicland is our family’s 32-year-old intergenerational gathering of singers, players, dreamers, and makers.
Untitled [This is what was bequeathed us]
Gregory Orr
This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.
No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.
No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.
That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.
That’s all for now!
Liz Rog
Center for Belonging Folk School
Decorah, Iowa
