(Photo | Courtesy of Caldera Arts)
Caldera Arts invites members of the community to join us for the first annual Hearth Festival on June 10-12. Hearth Festival is a joyous return to shared space and experiences, celebration, playfulness and community. Join us on Saturday, June 11, for an open gathering of community, meditative engagement with the land and a shared visit with the beautiful Blue Lake.
Our featured artists for this year’s event are Unit Souzou, presenting Constant State of Otherness, an immersive, experiential performance. Constant State of Otherness has been a more than four-year journey of creative and community engagement, ensemble-building, resilience, challenge and emergence and is co-created and performed by Unit Souzou Ensemble Members – Ian Berve, Michelle Fujii, Kristy Oshiro, Toru Watanabe, David Wells and Vicky Zhang.
This weekend-long series of performances will be the final stop on the debut tour for this project. We are excited to welcome Unit Souzou back to Caldera, where the deep creation process began.
Hearth Festival was imagined as a family-friendly opportunity to welcome the community back to the land where Constant State of Otherness was imagined. Much of the central storytelling inherent in the piece was informed by the stories of youth, families, elders from the community and Caldera students. Because of this, it feels natural and important to welcome that community back as we present the work that was born from this collective sharing of stories.
Free Events:
On Saturday, June 11, we invite you to join us for a full day of free, family-friendly activities from 10am-6pm. Community members are welcome to stay for the whole day or drop in throughout the day for just the elements you wish. Saturday highlights will include:
- Unit Souzou will share Otherness Stories: Four site-specific performances spaced out over the course of the day in various locations. These Saturday performances are free to all attendees.
- Sacred Rhythmic Hike: A facilitated walking meditation with Unit Souzou to notice, build awareness and reflect in togetherness, including a visit to Blue Lake.
- Drum Workshop with Unit Souzou
- Family-Friendly Workshops, suitable for children and adults.
- Student Art/ Youth artwork displayed
- Canoes at the Dock (lifeguards/waivers)
- Food will be available for purchase onsite or bring your picnic lunch to enjoy near Blue Lake.
- Video art installations from additional artists
- Guided Camp Tours, games and fun!
Ticketed Performances:
Extend your Hearth Festival experience by attending one of our ticketed performances!
Constant State of Otherness will be presented in full on both Friday evening (June 10) and Sunday afternoon (June 12), for limited, in-person audiences. Run-time is two hours, with a 15-minute intermission. Our Sunday matinee performance will be followed by an audience talk-back session with the artists.
Tickets for these performances will be limited, and we ask that guests purchase tickets in advance by visiting calderaarts.org.
About Unit Souzou:
Unit Souzou was founded in 2014 by Co-directors Michelle Fujii (Caldera Arts Artist in Residency Alum 2011 and 2018) and Toru Watanabe, relentless innovators at the forefront of a growing artistic movement within the taiko community. Fujii and Watanabe met at Warabi-za, Japan’s foremost traditional folk dance troupe based in Akita, Northern Japan. They have been guest artists and collaborators with many North American and international taiko groups. unitsouzou.com
About the Project:
Caldera Arts is proud to be a co-commissioning presenter and residency partner for Unit Souzou’s Constant State of Otherness. Our co-commissioning partners for this project include The Myrna Loy (Helena, Montana), Dance Place (Washington, DC), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and Risk/Reward (Portland, Oregon). Major funding has been provided by — National Performance Network/Visual Artist Network (NPN/VAN) Creation & Development Fund, MAP Fund, Puffin Foundation and New England Foundation for the Arts, National Theater Project Award.
About Caldera:
Caldera partners with youth and artists to build transformative art and environmental programs that drive cultural and social change. Our programs nurture individual creativity to ignite self-expression and transform the way young people engage in their lives, families and communities.