GOODNESS, ART, MUSIC,
DANCE, YOGA, NATURE
MEDIA
MEDIA
Mayor Malloy Hosts Lakota Indian Benefit Concert
FFLEDGER A benefit concert will be held Fri, Apr. 10, 7:30pm at the Stephen Sondheim Center for Performing Arts, to raise funds for the Lakota Indians (Sioux) of South Dakota. Proceeds will be used to build eco-friendly, sustainable homes for Lakota families. The concert is being presented by Nature’s Compassion - a service devoted to eradicating third world poverty from the Pine Ridge reservation. Mayor Ed Malloy will host the event Lakota elder Lorraine White Face Eagle Elk will begin the evening's festivities with the telling of a legend. Following will be performances by
The Duncan Dance Company, Shakti, Jonas Magram, Geralyn Paguia MUM dancers, Bliss Jiddu, Josy Welty, Sky Nite Dance Crew, Josie Overmyer, Elena, and Nature's Compassion's Temba Spirit.
There will be a guest performance by Iza, a Chiracahua Apache Tehuan and French Visionary Singer Songwriter.
The evening will include an auction hosted by Jonas Magram.
The DUNCAN DANCE COMPANY and students of Maharishi School combine their talents in a unique and colorful trilogy celebrating Native American culture. Isadora Duncan Dancer, and Director of The DDC, Rebecca Bachar will perform "Spirits of the Past", a dance inspired by the American Bald Eagle. Young members of the DDC and 6th Grade MSAE girls will present "Hopi Prophecy". The trilogy will culminate with advanced members of the company performing an original choreography reminiscent of the Ghost Dance "Return of . All dances set to traditional Native American music.
Attendees will have the opportunity to meet the Lakota family being supported. Beginning June 14, Nature’s Compassion will be traveling to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to help a Lakota orphan family become self sustaining. The group will be helping the family build an eco-dome with a tee-pee attached, construct an earth sheltered solar greenhouse, install a wind turbine and plant trees.
The group hopes that building an earth-sheltered solar green house to grow food will eliminate the family’s dependency on government food support and also give them access to natural food. The greenhouse will allow them to grow food all year round, even in freezing South Dakota temperatures. Total building expenses come to less than $20,000.
Tickets can be purchased at www.fairfieldacc.com. For information, visit www.naturescompassion.com, e-mail naturescompassion@gmail.com
Dancers protest dove bill
DES MOINES Clad in filmy white costumes and handing out feathers and chocolate hearts to passers-by, girls from a Fairfield, Iowa, dance class performed Monday in the State Capitol to protest legislation that would allow dove hunting.
Five students from the Isadora Dance School, ranging in age from 10 to 13, perched outside the Iowa Senate with protest signs that exhorted lawmakers to "Hunt Something Your Own Size" and asked them to consider "What message does this give to children?" They also performed the dance "Wings of the Doves."
The Iowa Senate is likely to begin discussion this week of legislation that would end the state's 83-year-old ban on hunting mourning doves.The bill would allow the Iowa Natural Resources Commission to decide whether to approve a hunting season.
Briani Carey, 10, of Fairfield, said she doesn't think doves should be killed "because they're peaceful and they don't do anything wrong."Some lawmakers told the girls the white doves that symbolize peace do not live in Iowa. But Briani wasn't convinced.
"I say all doves stand for peace," she said.
The girls' dance teacher, Rebecca Bachar, said the students recently formed a group called the Rainforest Club and decided to take on the dove lobbying effort as their first project.
"Children just normally, naturally are against any kind of violence, hunting or shooting," she said.
Backers of dove hunting have used attire to get lawmakers' attention, too.
Dance, yoga teacher opens studio in Ottumwa
OTTUMWA COURIER — It takes a certain amount of confidence for an American to go to India, the center of the yoga universe — and instruct the citizens there in yoga. Now, she’s teaching yoga and dance in Ottumwa.
Rebecca Bachar has decades of training in Isadora Duncan dance technique as well as Vedic yoga. During a visit to India, she taught dance and yoga in schools and in an orphanage.
“Working with the poor is very important to me,” she said.
In fact, even as she opens her dance studio here in downtown Ottumwa, she is seeking nonprofit status, is already working with low-income children and volunteers as an instructor for Active Ottumwa.
She loves the health benefits of yoga, as well as the flow of the Isadora style. Unlike ballet, its focus is upon natural movements. Bachar left the world of ballet more than 20 years ago. She was capable of the rigorous discipline. But the cruelty in the competitive circles she said she experienced was very unpleasant: instructors shouting at dancers, painful poses demanded by directors and “artificial” movements.
She’d started ballet as a child, eventually being accepted at the famed Milwaukee Ballet. She experimented with modern, jazz, African and Middle Eastern dance. Something was missing from all of them.
Upon seeing a performance of Isadora Duncan dance, she recalled some of the lessons she’d had in the style as a kindergartner. As an adult, she was awestruck. With more focus on flowing movement than on a series of poses, she threw herself into the style. A visiting NYU professor of dance visited Fairfield. Rebecca took lessons and workshops, and eventually, after multiple trips to New York (and a Duncan dance performance in Albania), earned her certificate from the Isadora Duncan International Institute in both adult and children’s dance.
The Temple Studio of Fine Art and Dance is located in Suite 3A at 228 E. Second St. Ottumwa. Class times vary;
Rebecca Bachar Opens Studio in Cornwall, Canada
Article by Lois Ann Baker Standard-Freeholder October 28 2016
Attempting to bring the beauty of Isadora Dance to Cornwall, the Temple Studio of Fine Art and Dance is opening its doors in the heart of downtown.
The new dance studio/art gallery is located in the former TAG unit on Pitt Street and owner Rebecca Bachar is ready to welcome Cornwall into her studio.
Bachar is originally from the United States where she had a few dance studios.
"I started out by teaching Isadora Dance," she said, the dance style 'named for famed dancer Isadora Duncan. "She is recognized as the Mother of Modern Dance."
Bachar started dancing at age three with regular modern dance and, at five, switched to ballet.
"After doing some yoga and other exercises, I realized that was not too healthy so I switched to this (Isadora) dance which is much healthier and more fun."
Bachar said traditionally ballerinas had to retire at 39 or 40 years old because of 'the strain the dance puts on their bodies, but an Isadora dancer can continue to dance well into their 80s if the desire.
"I switched when about 30 were and I trained in New York City," she said. "I trained for five years and started to teach pretty much right after my training and I've
been teaching ever since."
Along with Isadora Dance, Bachar also teaches Vedig Yoga. And about 15 years ago she added owning an art gallery to her repertoire.
I found the mixture works very well," she said. Along with teaching dance, Bachar said she will also be holding art shows, the first of which will be dance related.
"There are special drawings an Isadora dancer did a few years ago," she said. "Her name is Julia Levien, I have prints of these drawings. I will also be showing beautiful photo shoots my girls and I have done."
She will also be inviting other dancers, vocalists or local artists to her studio to perform there.
For those unfamiliar with Isadora Duncan Dance style, Bachar said the technique comes from the solar plexus, whereas in ballet, it comes from the lower back.
"Say that you are going to move an arm. In ballet, there would be an awareness of the back," she said. She described the movement as stopping at the shoulder. However in Isadora Dance, the movement is an extension of the whole body and much more fluid.
"It's a whole body movement," she said. "It means the whole body is connected. In ballet, everything is broken down like a marionette."
The dance style is usually done to classical music, but Bachar said she used music from around the world.
Bachar said she is very excited about her new studio because it is the first time she has had a space that is not only big enough for her dreams, but has the proper professional art gallery lighting for an art studio.
Anyone interested in learning more about Bachar's studio or registering for classes can contact her at 641.209.1471, by email at Rebecca.bachar@gmail.com.
You can visit her website at ottumwadance.com or rebeccadancetemplestudio.com. and she also has several pages on Facebook.