Our Music - villagefire

^{Our Music}

We sing to connect with each other, to bear witness, to make beauty, to share stories, to grieve, to celebrate. We sing because we are alive together and we have voices to put to use. We sing because there are important things to say, and song brings them power. We sing because it makes us laugh, and cry, and this feels good. We sing because we have been doing it for millenia. We sing because we love to sing!

The songs that we sing are easy to learn, and are taught to everyone who wants to learn them. They are often not long, but once they have been taught they become a playground that we can explore for as long as we want. Most often songs are taught using call-and-response. Whether you are a classically trained singer, a bathroom shower singer, or have never sung before, you will be able to follow along with the group, held up by the many other voices singing alongside you.

We love harmony, we love improv, we love listening for the places to be quiet together and the places that call for loudness, and finding our way as a group of listeners in creation together. You are welcome to join us in this continual experiment!

Our days flow between small circles of song led by both experienced and emerging songleaders; mealtimes shared at picnic tables and on the grass; community offerings; evening programs of dance, stories, variety shows, and other fun; late-night singing around the campfire taking turns between any who wish to invite a song; and sleep when the time is right for it.

Our Circle Hosts

Experienced and dedicated songleaders host daytime workshops where they teach gems from their own living communities. Also, opportunities for emerging songleaders abound, as all are welcomed to share songs in groups small and large throughout the days and nights. Because we seek to support the empowerment of voices and help community singing to sprout up in all the places that it is needed, we also gather for group discussion about community songleading for our times. Village Fire is a group endeavor and everyone can offer both their music and their presence to create an atmosphere rich in creativity and connection. We invite you to consider yourself a collaborator as well as a participant.

Throughout the daytime portion of Village Fire, we have an amazing collection of Song Circle Hosts who will bring us into song together. This year’s lineup is still developing.

Here are some Song Circle Hosts from past years, many of whom will join us again in 2020.

Melanie DeMore is a singer/songwriter, composer, conductor and vocal activist who believes in the power of voices raised together. She helps to preserve the African American Folk Tradition through song and Gullah stick pounding. She has a career spanning 30 years dedicated to teaching, lecturing, mentoring, conducting, directing and inspiring children and adults about the power of song as social and political change. She is adjunct faculty at the California Institute for Integral Studies and a featured presenter for SpeakOut! the Institute for Social and Cultural Change and the Artistic Conductor of The Oakland Children’s Community Choir with Living Jazz. Melanie says: "A song can hold you up when there seems to be no ground beneath you." http://www.melaniedemore.com/

Aimee Ringle is a singer/songwriter, songleader, and multi-instrumentalist. For 20 years Aimee has written, sung, and played in living rooms, coffee shops, and around campfires from Arizona to Iowa to Scotland. She has performed and led song circles along the West Coast at festivals and gatherings like Singing Alive! and is part of Songweavers with Laurence Cole and Aimee Kelley. She leads a chorus for girls ages 12-13, which is going and growing strong! She lives and works in Port Townsend, WA, but a part of her heart will always beat and sing in Decorah, Iowa.

Paul Vasile is a song leader and composer committed to modeling and sharing leadership practices that sustain the musical and spiritual life of communities. As the Executive Director of Music that Makes Community, he offers training, resources, and support to an international network of faith leaders who practice oral tradition singing, grounded in a spirit of welcome and generosity. Paul is a consultant and workshop facilitator who uses singing as a modality to support healing, deep listening, and conflict resolution. Committed to expressing and exploring faith in new ways, Paul composes music that celebrates Mystery, Love, spiritual pilgrimage, queerness, and the natural world. He has written extensively for St. Lydia’s and Not So Churchy, innovative, justice-centered faith communities in New York City.

https://www.paulvasile.com/

Lia Falls is fascinated by the power of the voice, in sound and in silence. In St. Paul, MN, at the LaLa Vocal Laboratory and Greenhouse, where voices grow wings and roots, she offers classes and private vocal sessions including Full Voice, Yoga of the Voice*, and Vocal Playground. Lia leads a community song circle in Dresser Wisconsin, where she lives. She also works in end of life care, and brings song and harp there as well. Yes, sound does reorganize matter, and sounding together matters! Lia is devoted to creating a safe space for people to open their voices.

*as developed by Silvia Nakkach and the Vox Mundi Project

Lisa G. Littlebird facilitates group singing as a transformational personal practice, healing art, and to foster healthy communities. Sharing from a repertoire of more than 500 oral tradition songs from around the world, she uses music as a pathway in service to opening the heart. Lisa resides in Big Sur, California, and has been on the faculty at Esalen Institute for more than a decade. She is the founder and director of the 130+ member Wholehearted Chorus in Big Sur and Monterey, CA, and leads community singing workshops internationally. She is also the creator and director of an online songleading training program for emerging song leaders, Littlebird Flight School, with more than 150 worldwide graduates. http://thebirdsings.com

Lydia Violet is an accomplished Iranian-American multi-instrumentalist weaving together Southern Blues, American roots, and Iranian folk music traditions. www.lydiafiddle.com Lydia has studied closely with deep ecology elder and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy for the past 9 years, learning how we can metabolize our pain for the world into energy for resilience, action, and community. She runs the Music as Medicine Project, a non-profit dedicated to creating access to music and music education as tools for resilient cultures in our communities, and continuing the work of Joanna Macy. Out of this organization she also runs "Singing Over the Bones," a program to support students in exploring songs and myths from their ancestral lineages, informing a deeper understanding about the relationship between cultural appreciation, exchange, and appropriation.

Travis McAfee is a Full Voice coach, singer, and vocal improviser. He is a fourth generation musician and voice teacher passionate about facilitating the exploration and expansion of the human voice through sounding, improvisation, and singing. He has studied with Barbara McAfee, Saule Ryan, and Rhiannon, and is an active member of a circle singing community in Atlanta where, after 12 years of recording and touring with East-West fusion ensemble Aradhna, he now cherishes a less transient life parenting a small entourage with his wife, Liz. travismcafeevoice.com

Dodie Whitaker is a multifaceted singer, actress, educator, and mom who brings her enthusiasm, diverse musical background, and passion for singing into connection and collaboration with people of all ages and walks of life. An active community song leader in the Driftless region of Southwestern Wisconsin, Dodie previously made her home in Chicago, where she performed and led vocal workshops in the Chicago Public Schools and at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and currently shares her joy of all things musical at Youth Initiative High School and Western Technical College. She is eternally grateful to the Village Fire community of song leaders and singers for their openness, warmth and inspiration, and is excited to add her own unique flavor of multicultural music to the mix!

Annie Zylstra is a community choir leader based in the vibrant Driftless Region of Wisconsin. She has been writing and leading songs in the aural tradition for the last seven years. Annie believes that using our voices to make beauty together is one of the most powerful things we can do in a world hungry for collective experiences of joy and meaning. She is particularly interested in the way song can enliven daily life and bonds us to place and community. Annie currently runs three aural tradition community choirs in Viroqua and Madison, WI, and facilitates workshops around the country. You can listen to her original songs or learn more about her choirs at heartlandharmony.net.

Mila Redwood is a Community Songleader in the global Ubuntu tradition. “Ubuntu” is a Zulu word meaning “I am because we are.” In this spirit, Mila is devoted to building vocal community through the power and goodness of song. She believes that singing is our birthright, and when we sing together in simple harmony, it creates a sense of belonging that nourishes the spirit. Born and raised in the northern lands of Ontario, Canada, Mila delights in holding group singing events in her beloved hometown and beyond. She leads the weekly "Sing for Joy" choir in her local community, and is an organizer of Singing Alive, an annual gathering on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

"Part of my mission is to re-acquaint people with their birthright and natural ability to make beautiful and meaningful sound together. Most of the songs I’ve written are short, easy to learn, chant-like songs with several layers that fit over and around each other in interesting and pleasurable rhythmic and harmonic challenges that make them fun to sing. Group singing is one of the most ancient and primal ‘technologies of belonging’ that we humans have been using since our earliest times, possibly before speech itself. When we make joyous and passionate song together, it nourishes our souls and offers an enlivening gift back to the natural world that made us and gives us our sustenance and our very being. When such an exchange is genuinely made, and the song finds its natural ending, often there is a sweet, lively silence in which we simply stand and hold the ‘enchantment,’ the sense of deep and genuine communion."

Laurence Cole

Songs for Ritual and Celebration. Songs for marking life’s beginnings, endings, birthdays, homecomings, the turning of the seasons, and more.
Pocket Songs. Simple songs that you can take out of the hip pocket of your memory whenever the need arises.
Kid-led songcircle.
Teen-led songcircle.
Songs for Kids and Those Who Love Them. Early American dancing games, silly songs, and songs that celebrate the beauty of our diverse world.
Circle of Rounds. Both simple, short-learns, and more challenging songs in round form.
Yoga of the Voice and Vocal Soundings, and other forms of vocal improvisation.
Rhythm 101: tips and homework for drumming and other rhythm playing.
Singing for Rowdies and Rascals
Group Improvisational Singing and Chanting
Drumming and Dancing
Celebrating Southern Roots

Songs to Power Activism. A singing movement is a winning movement, and there are lots of great people’s songs from struggles for liberation around the world.
Songs of Comfort and Healing for those struggling with living or dying. The spirit of the music ranges from gentle and soothing to uplifting and lively. Though they hold this work sacred, they do not adhere to a particular religious tradition.
Balkan Polyphony
Encouragement and practice for emerging songleaders
Collaborative song-making
Songs for Grief-tending
Up from the Land Deep Roots of Faith
Unleashing the Power of your Full Voice
Encouragement and practice for emerging songleaders
Collaborative song-making Songs for Grief-tending
Pass the Salt: Sacred Spoofs
Singing Your Guts Out
Mystical Texts

Singing Together to Nourish the Soul and Re-enchant the World with Song

Village Fire

Singing Together to Nourish the Soul
and Re-enchant the World with Song