BRATTLEBORO — The 11th annual Gathering in Gratitude returns to Brattleboro for two theatrical happenings with live music, storytelling, dance, and a focus on audience participation on Saturday, Aug. 12, at 2 and 7 p.m., at 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot Street in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont.
A suggested donation of $10, or as able, will benefit Groundworks Collaborative and the Mahalo Art Center. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
The happenings mark the culmination of a week-long intensive GIG workshop at Mahalo Art Center in West Brattleboro where participants delve into a dynamic, creative process which blends expressive arts with the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Thanksgiving Address, a practice that honors and gives thanks for all of nature.
Multigenerational and international workshop members engage their imaginations, feelings, and willpower to co-create a heart-centered poetic presentation of story, music, dance, and visual arts to share with local audiences.
Some room is still available for the weeklong workshop that starts on Monday, Aug. 7, at 8:30 a.m., and goes through the Saturday events, closing on Sunday morning. Actors, artists, musicians, writers, or anyone who simply feels drawn to come can apply by Aug. 4 at the Maholo Art Center/GIG website. The workshop is $500, but full scholarships are available thanks to generous grants from the Blessing Foundation and an anonymous donor.
“Gratitude has changed with the times,” said Luz Elena Morey, drama therapist with the North American Drama Therapy Association, developer of GIG, and Director of the Mahalo Art Center. “Giving thanks has taken on more power in our everyday lives. It goes way beyond the Thanksgiving table.”
In a news release, Morey said that, from the Iroquois perspective, “human beings have one fundamental job and that is to give thanks for all of the natural world. This happens throughout the year and serves to unite and heal people.”
She said that workshop participants “will explore nature through the expressive arts and from the perspective of gratitude, drawing largely on their own imaginations and working collaboratively to produce an experience to share with the extended community. Audiences leave feeling refreshed, affirmed, inspired, and touched deeply.”
In 2007, the first GIG was presented at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, and subsequent presentations have occurred at The Stone Church, the Vermont Jazz Center, Mahalo Art Center, and, last year, at the Gathering of Eagles and at the Wounded Knee District School in South Dakota.
In 2015, a group of Lakota teens participated in response to an ongoing teen suicide epidemic on the Pine Ridge and other native reservations and have formed enduring friendships with many in the Brattleboro community.
Last year, at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, participants used personal dreams channelled in the weeklong workshop to tell the story of how a white eagle and a rainbow leader helped one child save another from being killed by a bully on the playground.
Morey says she uses GIG techniques in her one-on-one therapy practice but that the group dynamic and audience sharing makes these happenings empowering for the whole community.