August 10 to 17, 2013
The
Art of Listening:
Where
Empathy Meets Creativity and Action
2013
co-Chairs are Jeila
Gueramian and
Scott Anderson.
Join
us for an engaging week of exploring how we listen to each other,
incorporate inspiration, and examine the resulting expressions in the
arts as well as social and political spheres. There will also be fun
workshops focusing on music and the arts, physical well-being, and group
action, in addition to the unstructured celebration of the favorite
pastimes, rocking, talking, and reading.
The Theme Speaker for LOAS
I,
2013 will be Anna Sale, politics reporter for WNYC
public radio, regular contributor to NPR and The
Takeaway, and a life-long UU, will lead us in a series of
conversations entitled, How Do We Hear Each Other, about national
politics, reportage of the election and how we as citizens consumed it,
and what we can learn from the art and science of empathy and listening.
Minister of the Week:
The
Rev. Dr. Leon Dunkley is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and a Star
Island veteran, attending YRUU, as a member of the Pelican staff, and
even a past LOAS I minister. He received his undergraduate degree
at Tufts University and his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University
of Pittsburgh.
Leon entered the Starr King School for the Ministry in
Berkeley, California, and was in St. Paul from 2008 to 2012 and began
serving the Unitarian Universalist Church of Silver Spring in August. He
sings and plays several instruments— including guitar, piano, conga,
gangogwe (West African double bell), didjeridu. He is writing a book on
spiritual growth and radical forgiveness.
Youth Leaders:
GROUP |
LEADERS |
LOCATIONS |
YOUTH COORDINATOR: Jennifer
Khavari |
Malaga |
Julie
Romero & Betsy
Kates |
tbd |
Lunging |
Bowie
Zunino & Roseannah Mills |
tbd |
Cedar |
Vanessa
Rose & Fred Mills |
tbd |
Duck |
Dick
& Martha Pereli |
tbd |
Smuttynose |
Toby
Dills & Christine Monty |
tbd |
Appledore |
Ross
Pustell & Suzy Rudomen |
tbd |
Our
Youth Coordinator this year, Jennifer Khavari is
heavily involved in Bangor Children's Museum, YMCA, PEO International (a
non profit dedicated to raising college funds for women), The American
Folk Festival, as well as being a certified National Ski Patrol EMT.
Registrars: Joyce
and Jim Pickel
Workshops and Starbursts:
WORKSHOPS
Week long classes offered daily |
Inhabiting Other Lives: Empathy in Narrative
Nonfiction
with David Whitford
Often the magazine stories we find most memorable
and affecting are the ones that take us inside the hearts of others.
In this workshop we’ll read and discuss one outstanding example of
empathetic long-form journalism each day. Think of it as a book club
on island time. I'll provide photocopies as needed but if you have
one, bring your tablet for digital access to the entire reading
list.
David Whitford is a staff writer at Fortune
magazine.
To get started, please download the select reading
material from Dropbox HERE!
Feel free
to get a head start on the assignments!
If you do not have an electronic reader, please make copies of the
readings and bring them to the island.
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Photography
with Jeff Barnett-Winsby
Photography is an accessible and
democratic medium that is capable of becoming powerful journalism,
high valued art, or priceless memories.
With these ideas in mind, we
will be doing a series of exercises to explore meaning within
photography, define our relationships to place through photography,
and ask how we get to know one another using photography. My
hope is that this can be a class of conversations and picture
making.
Limited technical help will be
offered outside of class on a one-on-one basis. First come, first
served through a sign up sheet.
You
may use any digital camera you like for this class from phone cam to
pro cam. If you would like feedback from the group, or would like to
utilize the printer, please bring the equipment you need to transfer
the images to our main computer temporarily. (Ex: USB thumb drive,
external hard drive, email device).
This
class is flexible and will form to the needs of the group. Please
come prepared to challenge yourself and to meet new people.
Jeff Barnett-Winsby is an artist
and community organizer with an MFA from the Rhode Island School of
Design in Photography, and served on the faculty at the RISD and the
URI. He is a co-executive director of the Wassaic Project and
Artist Residency Program. He lives in Wassaic, NY with his wife
Bowie and daughter Gilvey. They are trying to open a restaurant.
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Afternoon
Intergenerational Crafts Workshop
with Sam Francis and Gail Henry
Sam
Francis, elementary school science teacher at Sidwell Friends School
in DC, and her partner Gail Henry will lead a drop-in afternoon
crafts workshop for four days of LOAS 1. This
workshop will take place after youth programs have ended. All
ages are welcome, but the projects are designed for partners whose
combined ages must be 20+ years. Each participant can make and
take his/her own creation, but assisting each other throughout the
process is key. The projects will include: rain
sticks, kaleidoscopes and other optical illusion toys, origami boxes
and jumping frogs, simple machine puppets and “window fish.”
One of these projects or set of projects will be featured each day
and the schedule and location will be announced on island.
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Improvisation and Group Mind
with Ken
Keech
This
workshop will utilize improvisational theater techniques that are
focused on listening, collaboration and game.
Over the course of the week we
will use improv exercises and group activities to form a
cohesive and supportive troupe, create an improvisational
happening on the island, and join in making a
collaborative art piece. Participants will experience the
freedom of relying on a common group mind, grounded on trust and
agreement. The experience is sure to prove challenging, silly, and
exhilarating.
Ken Keech has been
studying, performing, and teaching improv for the last fifteen
years. He is a founding member of Improv Everywhere, a global prank
conglomerate, has performed extensively throughout New
York City and state, and was a featured performer at TEDx Buffalo,
utilizing text messages to create a group mind. Currently Ken
lives in Syracuse, New York where he is an advisor and Quantitative
Reasoning Specialist at a Big Picture High School. He performs
regularly with the Syracuse Improv Collective and is the front man
of an all-Fugazi ukulele cover band, Fugeuele.
|
Art Encounter
with Brendan Rose
In
this workshop we will design objects and interactions, aiming to
create moments of contemplation and enjoyment within the community.
Strategies to engage community with art will evolve collaboratively
over the week based on each days’ successes and failures. The
goals of this workshop are: to improve our skills as designers of
aesthetic experiences, to enrich the Star Island environment
physically and conceptually, and to have fun.
Born in Syracuse, NY, Brendan
Rose has worked professionally across the disciplines of
architecture, visual art, and construction. Brendan studied
architecture at the University at Buffalo and Syracuse University,
completing a master’s degree in 2010. Brendan served as the
Syracuse Public Artist in Residence from 2011-2012, working
collaboratively with community members and Syracuse University
students to design and install a series of sculptures within
Syracuse. Brendan’s work focuses on engaging people to take an
active role in making their environments beautiful, healthy places
to live through both art and architecture. |
Symphony For The Non-Musician
with Tim "Love" Lee
If you can listen, you can
compose and perform your own symphony ! Over the week we will listen
to music for inspiration, create musical instruments, compose a
symphony with them, and then perform the finished piece for
everyone. No musical knowledge or skills needed at all, just a pair
of ears, and an open mind. (Of course musicians are welcome too!)
Tim
is a world renown record-label owner, producer, musician, and DJ,
coming to Star island for the first time. Born in South Africa and
raised in Cambridge, England, he now makes his home in Brooklyn, NY.
He has hosted radio shows for the BBC and currently has hosted a
show for 10 years on East Village Radio, called ‘Two for
Tennis’. His musical career started straight out of high school,
playing keyboards in a little band called Katrina and the Waves, and
his musical pursuits have brought him around the world, performing,
djing, and including discovering bands like Groove Armada, and
Phenomenal Handclap Band. He is also a music publisher for Carly
Simon, and Steve Arrington among many others.
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Yoga
with Stephanie Gannon
Stephanie
has been a UU for the last 10 years and is one of the lay leaders in
the Brooklyn congregation, where she is the long-time coordinator of
the Small Group Ministry program. She just completed her first year
as a UU seminarian at Union Theological Seminary in New York with a
program emphasis on Psychology and Religion.

A
200-hr Hatha yoga RYT certified teacher, Stephanie has been
practicing yoga for over a decade and received her teaching
certification in the Anusara style two years ago from Todd Norian
and Ann Greene in the Berkshires. A member of First Unitarian
Universalist in Brooklyn, Stephanie has offered a community class in
the church chapel for the last three years and subs at a studio in
DUMBO. Besides her Anusara yoga background, Stephanie completed a
restorative yoga teacher training with Jillian Pransky at Yogaworks
in New York City, has studied meditation with Harshada Wagner, and
has taken numerous workshops on yoga philosophy, anatomy, advanced
asana, the Hindu goddesses, acroyoga, and yoga slacklining. She has
also taken several laughter yoga workshops and has volunteered to do
laughter yoga with seniors on a regular basis. Stephanie’s classes
tend to be very heart-oriented and playful and yet challenging at
the same time.
She
is thrilled to lead the yoga workshop on beautiful Star Island
during the second week of August. Themes we may explore together
include community, deep listening, the five elements, and having the
courage of your own heart.
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S T AR B U R S T S
Single, 45 Minute Mini-Workshops to fill in your days
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