Image description: A photo of Fior dancing on a wood floor in a darker room. It is just out of focus. Fior is wearing black pants and sleeveless top with a colourful belt or scarf at their hips. They have long, loose, wavy light brown hair and have one leg bent at the knee off the ground, one arm bent at the elbow horizontally and one vertically. There are two areas of bright white, pink and blue stripes from led illuminated poi in a slightly long exposure. Photo: Bob Pearson

Lighting Fire: Sparking Change

Lead Artist: Fior Saoirse

Contact: ChangeMakersEducation@outlook.com

Audience type: General

Length: 1-5 days of land based artistic exploration (residency or workshops) with a culminating 30 min – 1 hr sharing/ performance

Space required: Adjustable to any outdoor open space with dry ground (i.e. forest, grass field, beach etc)  

Preparation required: 30 min of set up time

Minimal on-site technical requirements: Portable Bluetooth Speakers

Possible Community Engagement Activities: Emergent workshops/ collaborative outdoor residency with a culminating community sharing and performance

Availabilities: 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons

Number of artists:  1-3 facilitators from Changemakers  (performers are also part of support team staff for the project)

Open to any number of youth (teens/ young adults) members of the community who would like to participate in the workshops/ residency exploration.

Workshop Details: we spend time in dialogue meeting and discuss our relationship to the land and each other while exploring the land and finding movements that mimic nature and reflect our experiences, hopes, fears, and dreams. We journal, and draw to process our feelings.  

 
For the culmination of a 3-5 day workshop: we meet on a nature trail that leads to or in near water.  We begin by acknowledging the land that we are on and reflect on our personal and collective history, how we got here, how we impact the land and how the land impacts us. Through guided exercises, we will come together in ritual to explore the elements:

• Air, focusing on breath and sound, wind and how the wind creates motion, and the air connects us all we will use dance and later in our collective performance, we will silk fans and fabric to explore this movement

• Earth, we will explore how the ground feels, how our body feels interacting with the ground, we will explore plants, name them, touch them offer gratitude and gather some for a fire.

• Water, we will touch water, gather water, move like water and give gratitude to water

• Fire, we will create fire together and use controlled  fire (candles) to light each other’s passion, we will offer our gifts to the fire, we will dance as fire and with fire and all of the elements

• Magic, we will celebrate what we are capable of creating when we engage our spirits in contributing to something collectively and begin a collective performance.