Community Medicine Magic: The Power of Performance

As a theater director, my greatest satisfaction has been to create moments where communities reflect together and share a special experience. As a young man, I took inspiration from the work of John Waddell, an iconic bronze sculptor in the Verde Valley, whom I worked for as an archivist. One of the themes of his work was “the beauty of individual differences.”

As I developed my creative work, I was interested in finding platforms that brought out the power and distinct beauty of different types of human expression through performance. In sharing this work through free, open-air performance, I found a pathway to navigating diverse cultural expressions and creating community medicine magic. 

 It is in this spirit that Carpetbag Brigade’s Roving Wave Festival was conceived as a traveling festival to bring free live performance culture to five different cities and towns in Yavapai County. The festival features the acrobatic stilt walking of The Carpetbag Brigade with international artists from the UK, Colombia and Canada performing their new work, “Flotsam & Jetsam.” The Carpetbag Brigade is internationally renowned for synthesizing acrobatic stilt dancing, but also known for dance, contact improvisation, musical composition, contemporary dance and physical theater. 

 There will be a mix of outdoor performance styles with guest artists at the festival presentations this month. Chase Archer, a juggling flow artist, will present two mesmerizing self-devised creations. Meg & Thatcher’s “OK Apocalypse” aims to dress the wounds, set the bones, cool the fever and bring down the swelling of our collective trauma in the very midst of turmoil through story, song, poetry, movement and connection. The TBD Show puppets comically satirize current living conditions poking fun at the follies of humanity. There will be spoken word from Mona Nyree and dance from Breanna Rogers. 

 Bring your kids, bring your parents, bring your friends, bring strangers and make friends. It promises to be food fun for all! Come and enjoy an evening in a beautiful space with free all-ages performances. The Roving Wave Festival travels throughout Yavapai County from July 12-21.

 

7 p.m., July 12, Sliding Rock Jail Park, Jerome

7 p.m., July 13, Old Town Basketball Court, Cottonwood

6 p.m., July 14, Posse Grounds, Sedona

6 p.m., July 20, Civic Center/Concert on the Green, Prescott Valley

4:30 p.m., July 21, Courthouse Plaza, (this starts with a free hour-long yoga class from Bend Yoga Studio)

 

The Carpetbag Brigade is an integrative cultural force with a mission to present the performing arts in a diverse array of venues and environments and increase the quality, scope and impact of live performance culture through training, community outreach and aesthetic presentation. Our work provides a platform for people of different cultural backgrounds to share, create, express and reflect on common experiences. By utilizing performing arts and its pedagogy as a tool to transcend language, class and environmental background, we aspire to evolve the role of performance culture and ensemble practice as a fundamental aspect of a healthy society.

 When I founded the Tsunami on the Square arts festival, I wanted to bring something for everybody in everybody’s hometown. The Roving Wave Festival is a countywide continuation of that intention. We look forward to seeing you there! QCBN

By Jay Ruby

For more information, visit carpetbagbrigade.com.

Jay Ruby is an actor and the founder and executive director of The Carpetbag Brigade. He can be reached at info@carpetbagbrigade.com.