  | ||
Grass Roots under our Feet I picked my election season cynical self up on October 14 and headed out to Earthdance at Hansen Dam Amphitheater. I was looking for a well meaning party trying to raise a few bucks. What I found was an earth shattering array of optimism, a growing force for positive change that will not fight its way forward, but may just love its way into recognition. My arrival was greeted with a sweaty hug from Nelsonic at 1 pm. "Dancing already?" I asked. "No, I'm digging out the truck, it's stuck in the dirt." Sure enough, the whole gig would be delayed because the equipment had to be hauled the 100 yards from the embankment embedded truck to the stage. "So you're working this event?" "I am now," said the unpaid enthusiast. I would later lose Nelsonic to a few hours of garden shoveling out those huge wheels, at which the retreating tow truck driver had laughed heartily. Another volunteer had left the dance floor to dig as well. What kind of party is this, where people volunteer for sweat duty? Where dancers hound the organizers for trash bags so the grass doesn't get too messy? Where the RaveTheVote.com booth is always buzzing with political discourse, even as the likes of Jason Bentley, Donald Glaude, dj Brad, Mick Cole, and Freddy Be spin gorgeous grooves? It's EarthDance 2000, Southern California style. Earthdance, the concept, came to Chris Dekker in a vision in Egypt, in which he saw dance floors united around the world. Incredibly, the reality has outgrown even that far-out vision. This year, 80 dance floors united world wide in a simultaneous Prayer for Peace, embodied in a beautiful electronic Om-ing track by Antara, another coordinator of the first Earthdance along with Kia Miller. At 4pm, the track played, we lifted our interlocked arms in concentric circles around the dance floor, and were webcast and linked with the world. Whatever the nearby baseball players and mounted police may have thought, we knew we were part of something transcendent, born of a strange dream. From that original vision to help struggling Tibet, Earthdance has now expanded to support three more causes: the environment, indigenous tribes, and children. In a truly compelling mixture of improvisation, heart felt talk, and native dance, Redstar, a member of the Chumash, (Wishtoyo in their language) held hundreds of energetic dancers in rapt seated silence for his opening ceremony, lasting a full 25 minutes. Blending the three themes, he reminded us that as newcomers, we now shared responsibility for this, his native land, and that we only ever borrow this land from our children. He also spoke of this as a time of twilight, with our world on the brink of great change, and its fate in our hands. We later learned from Matiwaya about a planned dump in Eagle Mountain, right on the border with Joshua Tree National Park. I then had the honor of asking my new Prayer for Peace comrades if they wanted L.A. to use Joshua Tree as its garbage can. The resounding "No!" gave me renewed faith in my plans to make a difference, as I continue my own political campaign. Successes overflowed into the night. RaveTheVote passed out loads of important information, including frightening new drug search possibilities posed by Supreme Court Justice Kennedy. Proposition 36, which mandates drug treatment over incarceration, got great support at Robin Hollinger's booth. The Green Party was being green, and we ran out of letters to stop the dump at Eagle Mountain. Local dj, producer, S.O.U.L. Vibration label owner and Bud Brother, Freddy Be created the non-profit Heartcore to promote the most positive elements and issues of electronic dance, in 1997, just when Earthdance was gelling, and the synergy was a natural. In Freddy's words, "Gathering of the Tribes, Heartcore, Earthdance…is all of us!" This beautifully sunny day on the grass (a rarity for dusty So. Cal.) netted almost 3000 happy dancers, $7000 towards the causes (gotta watch that guest list!), and an invitation from park staff to let it run even later next year, after this year's close at 9 pm. Earthdance Southern California is growing into its fifth year. These organizers, professional enough to make it all super smooth, but underground enough to laugh at the crippled truck with knowing playfulness, deserve to fill the entire park next year. The relentlessly optimistic, and not all that young, dancers deserve the space too, as they grow into budding activists. The makings are here, and in San Francisco and London and Sydney and 76 other locations, of a truly new way toward political change, without the usual confrontation. I left Hansen Dam, one of thousands who had shared a day of dance, and thought, and giving. I was both exhilarated and exhausted, as you can only be when you've wrung your day dry. I looked to my left and saw colorful kids of all ages. Glancing to my right, I saw that the truck was finally free. And so were we.
(Francis DellaVecchia is a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles in April of 2001. He is webcasting his entire campaign and asking the real people of L.A. how they think it should change at WatchTheMayor.com. He was an organizer of 4 Days of Unity in MacArthur Park during the Democratic Convention, which featured music from Jason Bentley, Jason Blakemore, Moontribe's Treavor, Freddy Be, Champa 51, and many others, as well as speakers on the Drug War, Environmental causes, and the Freedoms of Speech and Assembly.) Learn More! Get involved! (These groups were represented by speakers and/or booths at Earthdance Southern California)
www.earthdance.org/heartcore - for links to other groups, and more information about the event itself
| ||