Earth Celebrations-Ecological and Social Change through the Arts

Bio-Remediation Sculpture – KATHY CREUTZBURG

Kalunga Neg Mawon is a musical ensemble whose mission is to preserve the African tradition and identity existing in Kisqueya Ayiti, known today as the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti. We use the name, Kalunga, to highlight the Congolese cultural aspects retained in Dominican/Haitian culture and throughout the African diaspora in the Western Hemisphere. Kalunga is a goddess of the Congolese nation known also as the Muntu-Bantu or Bakongo. She is the universal cosmos, the “Big Bang” from which all life comes from, including the depths of the seas and oceans.

IVA is a vocalist and songwriter with an ethereal quality to her powerful voice and a cinematic feel to her music. Her work is transporting, taking the listener into a world of imagery that evokes deep feelings of inspiration, longing, and peace. Her newest record, “Nobody’s Woman” was released this year after making a breakthrough with “Run” on Spotify and AAA radio. The new record is evocative of Weyes Blood and Margo Price .. with a little Aimee Mann sprinkled in. She lives between Brooklyn and outside of Philadelphia, where she leads her band.

Artichoke Dance Company (ADC) works at the intersection of performing arts innovation, environmental activism, community building and civic engagement. ADC uses arts and creativity to engage people in environmental justice and change making and to envision resilient futures. The Company’s Ambassador Program trains and mentors artists to merge their creative practices with climate action through a week-long intensive program in July and online modules. You can also join us this summer for immersive performance tours in rapidly changing Gowanus. .

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.
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.

Green Map System is based in Manhattan on the Lower East Side. Alongside the global program, we also have a local Green Map project for our hometown. In fact, the original NYC Green Map created by Wendy Brawer and friends inspired the development of our global nonprofit. Whether we are mapping all of New York City, or creating thematic maps of our own culturally-rich, socially active neighborhood, NYC has been our testing ground for new types of Green Maps, workshops, tours and media projects for the past 25 years! In addition to helping New Yorkers become more sustainable, each of these projects was a learning experience that was shared through the engagement tools and mapping resources that have been adapted by locally-led Green Map projects in 65 countries.

Lower East Side Ecology Center has pioneered community-based models in urban sustainability since 1987. We provide unique e-waste and composting services, environmental stewardship opportunities, and educational programming to all New Yorkers who want to learn about environmental issues and take responsibility for creating solutions through action.

Waterfront Site 3 - Jody Sperling choreography- Time Lapse Dance

and performers from Performers:





Music

“Rose from Concrete” is a multidisciplinary performance that combines the raw energy of HIP-HOP dance with the poignant artistry of spoken word poetry to illuminate the resilience of NYCHA residents living in a climate crisis-impacted community. Through evocative movements and words, the performance explores how adversity and public health crises, such as asthma, shape the lives of individuals within marginalized communities. Despite facing environmental injustices, the residents learn to persevere, grow, and fight for climate justice. "Rose from Concrete” is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of community solidarity in the face of adversity.

Infinite Movement is dedicated to enhancing the well-being of underserved families by utilizing arts and wellness initiatives. Our mission is to foster community resilience, facilitate healing through trauma-informed practices, and ignite empowerment and activism.

GOLES(Good Old Lower East Side) is a grassroots neighborhood-based organization dedicated to keeping people in their homes and community through direct services, public education, and community organizing.

“Ashore” – Sixth Street Youth

Sixth Street Community Center (SSCC), founded in 1978, is a community-based not-for-profit organization based in the heart of the Lower East Side. Having formed out of the historical sweat equity and homesteading movement, SSCC empowers the local community through grassroots organizing and power building. SSCC is committed to advancing social, environmental, housing, economic and racial justice– offering a number of community-based programs: a youth program, teen climate justice program, community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, emergency food distribution program, and a mutual aid kitchen project. Our students enrolled in the Sixth Street Youth Program will perform a play centering topics such as ocean pollution, corporations and their role in climate change, community building, and how to be caring stewards of our planet. We will be doing song and dance, dressed as different creatures of the neighborhood, and The Climate Solutions in our performance are going to be aligned with social and environmental social justice as it relates to gentrification and food insecurity in our neighborhood.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - 6BC Botantical Garden- Jenny Amanda Hurwitz.

Jenny Amanda Hurwitz writes, sings and strums her “subversive pop” songs – some of which can be heard and viewed on her YouTube Channel and that of The People’s Music Network. Her songs are tuneful – many with lyrics reflecting progressive causes or issues, coupled with unexpected chord changes. She sometimes performs with Talbot “Top” Katz and their daughter SamiRose Katz.

Ecological City 2024 Procession -Earth School PS 364- Amy Falder, New York Green Roofs.

Earth School was founded in 1992 by teachers in Manhattan’s East Village 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.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - 6th & B Community Garden- El Tea (Lee Taylor)
Lee Taylor is a Brooklyn based singer-songwriter. She has a monthly residency at the Django in Tribeca, Freddy’s Bar in Brooklyn, and Jack Jones Gastropub in Astoria. She also performs regularly at Bar Bayeux and Barbes in Brooklyn. Her debut album, “Wild Woman”, is available on all platforms.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - Parque de Tranquilidad Garden- Jesús Papoleto Melendez.

Jesús Papoleto Melendez is an award-winning Puerto-Rican poet and playwright born and raised in NYC. He is one of the original founders of the Nuyorican poetry movement, a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are of Puerto Rican descent and who were brought up in New York City during the late 40’s and 50’s, as a means to validate the Puerto Rican identity and experience in the United States. He is also a teacher and an activist.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - El Jardin del Parasio- Nicole Peyrafitte.

A performance action celebrating the spirit of the moment at Jardin del Paraiso. Guided by the landscape, weather, attendance and her intuition Peyrafitte investigates this point in time as a phenomenon— from Greek phainomenon “that which appears or is seen.” Her sense of body movement & body position are the meeting points between painting, poetry, voice & improvised music. Nicole Peyrafitte is a pluridisciplinary artist. Recent exhibitions: Antediluvian Sympoiesis —Sapar Contemporary Gallery (2022), NYC; Karstic Actions/ Works with Pierre Joris —Gallery Simoncini, Luxembourg (2021); The 11 Women of Spirit — Salon Zürcher, NYC (2020).

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

“Garden Ceremony”

Carmen Pabon Del Amencer garden was named after Carmen Pabon who was known as the Little Mother Theresa of the Lower East Side for feeding the homeless. Her daughter Ines Pabon is President of the garden and Carolyn Ratcliffe is the treasurer.

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 rock band The Head Peddlers. Their first album, BIG MOHAIR SWEATER, will be released in a few weeks. Elizabeth’s theater work has most recently been seen at Theater for the New City (TNC), at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and in NYC Community Gardens. She will direct and act in ROOM WITH STARS, a new play by Nina Howes that will open at TNC in June. She acted as music director and choreographer of “Live Free or Die” from Michael Shenker’s masterwork, A SQUATTER’S OPERA, performed at TNC. She is a professor at Boricua College and holds a Ph.D. in Theater from Columbia University. Her dissertation centers on the theater of Cuba, where she lived for a year. 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. She is a musician/songwriter Karl Bateman formed the rock band, the Head Peddlers, named for Queequeg in Moby Dick. Their first LP and EP came out last summer and can be heard at TheHeadPeddlers.BandCamp.com and most online streaming services.

“Im Treibhaus from Wesendonck Lieder” Aria by Richard Wagner – EVE ORENSTEIN, Mezzo Soprano
“Birth of Climate Solutions” – LOLA LUKAS
The Story of Water and Hurricane Sandy” – GLOBAL WATER DANCES – MARTHA EDDY

Eve Orenstein is a versatile mezzo soprano and inventive opera producer. She is a member of the National Chorale, the resident professional choir of New York’s Lincoln Center. Eve founded the Colorado chapter of Opera on Tap and directed the group for 10 years. She was profiled in Westword as one of the 100 Colorado Creatives. Eve and her husband Sean mix classical voice and synthesizers in the space opera duo Orbiting Olympia. Instagram: .

Dr. Martha Eddy, CMA, RSMT is a co-founder of Global Water Dances, which uses body consciousness to enhance our capacity to protect water and the planet. This organization sponsors a biennial worldwide environmental dance event that brings together over 180 sites on 6 continents. Martha also created Moving For Life Dance-Exercise for Health, first in NYC, which offers free movement and wellness classes in libraries, centers and hospitals in all five boroughs and throughout the world. Currently online, MFL seminars and classes attract older adults, and people of all ages in treatment or recovery from cancer. It is open to others dealing with chronic pain or illnesses. Martha leads movement choirs for conferences and brings Global Water Dances to environmental justice actions that focus on local or global issues. She is the author of Mindful Movement and Dynamic Embodiment of the Sun Salutation.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Garden (9C) - Belu Olisa

Belu Olisa is a multidisciplinary artist with roots in folk music and training in opera and electronic music. Her music represents her desire to raise the vibration of the planet, emphasizing the relationship and mirror between the natural world and humans. Her debut single, Conversation with the Sun tells the tale of the divine aspect in everything existing.

Ecological City 2024 Procession -Campos Garden - Mindy Levokove

Sustainable” Poem by STEVE DALCHINSKY — Read by MINDY LEVOCOVE In loving memory of STEVE DALACHINSKY (1946-2019)

Steve Dalachinsky was a 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 the PEN Oakland National Book Award; Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres; Acker Award; Kafka Award & Benjamin Franklin Award.

Mindy Levokove is an old friend of Steve and Yuko’s and honored to be reading Steve’s poem today. A multi-media performance poet, this year, Mindy has been awarded a Creative Engagement Grant in music from LMCC, for EXPANDING TABLE – A POP – (APART) – OPERA! A member of writing groups Brevitas and HERStories, Mindy also teaches qigong, Tai Chi, Writing and Math. For more than 20 years, Mindy’s been a member of the 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden, where she often curates Poetry and Prose.

Ecological City 2024 Procession - Down to Earth Garden- Garden Ceremony

Ecological City 2024 Procession - Eastside Outside Garden- Nathan Dufour Oglesby

Nathan Dufour Oglesby is a rapper, writer and video artist whose work explores philosophical and ecological topics. His songs, videos and essays reach audiences on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, and he’s also building the growing online educational network Grokkist, led by an interactive ecosophy course.

Ecological City 2024- Procession from Sixth Street Community Community Center to Avenue A

CLIMATE SOLUTION: PROCESSION START
Ginga Pura Director Glenn Healy is a versatile and experienced percussionist, drum set player, educator and bateria director. In addition to drumming in dozens of Rio de Janeiro carnival parades with top-tier samba school baterias, he has toured performing in 15 countries on four continents, and taught on three continents. Recordings include Romero Lubambo‘s award-winning Rio de Janeiro Underground album. Also long-time drummer of NYC’s Tom Clark & the High-Action Boys, and music consultant SideTime.com’s featured expert on Brazilian Percussion and Rhythms.