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Lavender Grace

Media; Multi Arts; Performing Arts: Actor/Actress, Dance, Music, Radio/Television, Spoken Word, Storytelling, Theatre, Vocal; Visual Arts: Graphic Arts, Performance Art, Performers and Writers

“Music is my medicine, my story of healing. my offering to you, on your journey, to help you find your Medicine in your own song, within your own rhythm.” Lavender Grace is dedicated to the tools of Heart Song Medicine, for the good of all, for the collective evolution of all beings. She is a Sacred Ecology Specialist, and facilitator of Intuitive Drum Song, a course created by the lands and people of Northern California, informed by the lineage of her Celtic Ancestors & the influences of Moorish song and dance. At the very core, Lavender Grace is instructed by the Bees. She moves to the rhythm of the hive, the path of co-existence, the life song path, the life dance to the beat of the heart drum. Dedicated to the shared responsibility of our times, to elevate our consciousness. Come, show up, be courageous, you are needed! She is a facilitator, musician, actor, dancer, poet, artist, and consultant to those in need of her services. For more info visit www.honeyhivemendo.com

Trudy McCreanor

Performing Arts: Dance

Trudy is the Artistic/Executive Director of the Mendocino Ballet Company and School since 2001,where she has implemented a comprehensive, professional Classical Ballet training program for the serious dancer and a multi-discipline recreational dance program including ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, flamenco, character dance, creative dance, and more. She has performed numerous roles in contemporary and classical ballet and has taught classical ballet, jazz, tap, creative dance, floor barre, and gymnastics throughout the country and internationally in southern France where she was a Guest Instructor and Choreographer in a cultural exchange project with over 30 dancers from schools north of Paris and in Valence d’Agen in southwest France. She has organized Outreach Programs for Arts in Education Programs and taught movement workshops and dance history throughout the community and school districts of western Colorado and northern California. She also taught Dance Movement and Dance History Workshops at Woodlands Charter School and Tree of Life Charter School in Ukiah and Classical Ballet and Performance classes at Mendocino College. She was a guest teacher and taught Arts Management, Ballet, and Dance History at Mesa State College in Colorado. She has produced and choreographed musical theatre productions for the schools and community theatre in western Colorado and northern California as well as classical and original ballets for Colorado West Ballet and the Mendocino Ballet.

Blake More

Graphic Arts; Literary Arts; Multi Arts; Performing Arts: Dance, Spoken Word, Theatre; Visual Arts: Constructions/Collage, Functional and/or Decorative, Graphic Arts, Murals, New Media/Technology, Painting, Performance Art, Performers and Writers

A 1987 graduate of UCLA and a lifetime member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Blake More is an artist with many creative voices and expressions. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines, her work embraces visual art, poetry, video, performance, costume design, teaching, functional mixed media art/life pieces and hand-painted art cars, including her newest artcar, a Mercedes SL500 painted with a metallic palette she calls “Star Yantra” (staryantra.life). Blake first stepped on stage in Japan in 1994, when she agreed to recite poetry with a friend’s jazz band at a Shinjuku music club in Tokyo. Since then, she has performed her spoken word art in a range of venues—from cafes, art galleries and museums to 1000 seat theaters—in major cities all over the world, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York City, Amsterdam, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Her performance art is a fusion of spoken word, music, yogic contortion, dance, trapeze, clowning and costuming. She creates to reveal, questions to inspire and shares to engage the audience in soulful expression. Among her performance highlights are the time she shared the stage with jazz pianist Cecil Taylor and beat poet Tony Seymour in a Bob Kaufman tribute reading at the Main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, and the International Poetry Festival in Amsterdam (sponsored by the Provost Poets). She has traveled cross country on a performance tour with a group of San Francisco performance artists and musicians that then became the movie “Head Trip”. But her favorite project to date is a multimedia play called Boxing Pandora, which she wrote, produced, costumed, directed and stared in; 75 minutes long, the play itself involved the efforts of over 20 local artists and included an original score, original video (both live and prerecorded), a 13 member Greek-inspired chorus, poetic monologue, dance, audience participation and a trapeze (no monkeys though). A freelance writer for 15 years, Blake’s work appeared in Utne Reader, Yoga Journal, Intuition Magazine Alternative Medicine Digest and Tokyo Time Out. To date, she has written two non-fiction books, one fiction book, and three poetry chapbooks. Her most successful book is a holistic health book entitled Alternative Medicine’s Definitive Guide to Headaches, which has sold over 100,000 copies sold to date. Her poetry has appeared in a number of literary journals and books, including Heart Flip (CPITS anthology), The Alchemy Of The Word: Voices At the Edge, San Francisco Poets Live At Venue 9, Wood, Water, Air and Fire: Anthology of Mendocino Women Poets, Hard Love: Looking at Violence & Intimacy, The Toaster Broke, So We’re Going To Get Married. Author of five books of poetry, her book godmeat is a collection of poetry, prose, color artwork, and a DVD compilation of poem movies (available at godmeat.com), and her chapbook Up In the Me World is available on her website. In addition to her writing, she teaches poetry, multimedia art and performance to K-12 youth. A California Poets In the Schools (CPITS) poet teacher since 2000, she is also the Mendocino County Area Coordinator for CPITS. She organizes two annual Mendocino County High Schgool Poetry Slams and serves as the coach of the Point Arena Youth Poetry Slam Team. She also writes grants to do special, longer residencies, including: One of these projects was entitled “The Poetry Of The Blues”, in which she and New Orleans blues pianist Nelson Lunding guided 2nd thru 8th grade students in the writing of original 12 bar blues songs (with titles such as “Rocks in my Shoes”, “Our Bus Life” “Soap Opera School”), which were then arranged by Nelson and sung by the kids. These recordings were compiled into five original Kids Blues CDs, and one compilation CD entitled “We’re Playing Blues”, which is currently on sale as a fundraiser for “Gualala Arts In the Schools”. In another especially noteworthy youth project, she and videographer Christian Birk guided six Native American youth in the creation of a documentary film about living on the Pomo Reservations of Kashia, Point Arena, and Manchester in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Because of its raw power and unadorned honesty, the youth film crew became one of 14 youth groups in the nation to be invited to participate in the 2003 Reel Studio Young Filmmakers Workshop at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; the film has been widely shown to diverse audiences, from schools to art centers, from tribal centers to businesses and social service organizations. It even managed to land a spot on the shelf in the Smithsonian Cultural Heritage Library. She hosts an hour-long public affairs program called Women’s Voices on KZYX&Z FM Mendocino. She is also sits on several non-profit arts and education boards, and volunteers with many local organizations. For an extensive list and exploration of Blake More’s creative world please visit her website: www.snakelyone.com

Eryn Schon-Brunner

Performing Arts: Dance, Theatre; Visual Arts: Performance Art

Eryn Schon-Brunner is an American choreographer, dancer, and dance educator who lives and works in northern California. Completing her MFA in Dance at Hollins University Summer of 2019, and having earned her BFA at Cornish College of the Arts. Since 2012 Eryn has taught dance at Mendocino College and is artistic director of Mendocino College Dance Repertory Company, producing the annual Fall Repertory Concert and the Spring Dance Festival. As part of the part-time faculty for Mendocino College Theater Conservatory program, Eryn has also choreographed and set movement for many plays and musicals. Eryn is currently artistic director of Eryn Schon-Brunner and Dancers, a pick-up dance company based in Mendocino County. Her work employs classical, electronic, jazz, and contemporary pop music, and her movement vocabulary is also wide ranging. Eryn works across disciplines and often collaboratively, connecting different media, people, and ideas. In 2002, she formed her own dance company, BE Productions Dance, with Rebecca Levy. From 2002 to 2009, BE Productions performed original works in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston. She has performed, and taught dance along the west coast and internationally for the past 20 years.

Kara Starkweather

Performing Arts: Dance; Visual Arts: Performers and Writers

Kara Starkweather is a California native, growing up in the South Bay Area. She has been dancing and making dances as soon as she could walk. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and Spanish from the University of California at Davis in 2000. She then moved to Santiago, Chile where she danced with Compania Movimiento. She moved to the rugged and beautiful Mendocino Coast in 2002 to start a family of her own. She started the Mendocino Dance Project in 2014 and continues to direct the company, producing annual shows, offering classes and workshops, and facilitating an elementary dance education program in some of the local schools. She is committed to helping art thrive in rural communities. In addition to running her own company, Kara is an active dancer with the internationally acclaimed company BANDALOOP, she has collaborated and toured with the Flynn Creek Circus, choreographed for the Gloriana Opera Company, and partnered with other local arts organizations and individual artists in Mendocino County.

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