Ask and Ye Shall Receive!

www.earthdance.net

In 1996 the Earthdance website was established under the direction of Greg Lara. Now, under the tireless efforts of John Howland, our website is undergoing major renovations. This Fall the site will contain more complete and up-to-date information on living and working at Earthdance, our expanded schedule of events for the local community, details about the Capital Campaign, a virtual tour of our facilities, and much more! We intend the revised site to be kept dynamic with frequent additions of photographs, new and update information. If you haven't checked out our site in a while, its time to take another look!

Database Project

This summer we began an ambitious project of designing a new database under the guidance of Phil Mitchell and Rick Roberts, and the assistance of Megan Frazier. This new database will enable us to electronically store much of the information that we are currently tracking by hand, streamlining the office work, facilitating sharing of information between staff, and improving our record keeping.

Update: The Western Mass Moving Arts Project

The continued popularity of our Music & Movement Jams has been inspirational and I hope to find more ways to bring together musicians and dancers in improvisational spaces. Penny's Community Sings have once again blessed Earthdance with the power of song, community, and love. Eclectic Offerings, our monthly evening of open sharings has been a sweet and varied experience of intimate gatherings and powerful performances.

In our second year of our expanded Performance Series, we have had the pleasure of hosting a wide assortment of individual and group teachers and students. We are grateful Ashfield, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, and Plainfield, local councils of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, for their support.

Certainly a high point of our performance series and of the WMMAP was our Summer Party when the Village Harmony Chorus, a group of twenty-plus teens led by Larry Cutler, performed at Earthdance. Filling the entire floor of our dance barn, the loft area, and even spilling out into the hallway to watch, the crowd was enchanted by those amazingly professional performers. Especially gratifying was experiencing the mixture of the people here to see the concert with the dancers here to dance after the concert at our Summer Dance Party. It was quite a beautiful weaving of people and cultures. Many of the Village Harmony teens also joined in the Dance Party for their first experience of contact improvisation.

Feasting Around the World, inspired by Carolyn Shakti Sadeh, has blossomed as a beautiful new event at Earthdance. Each month a feast has been hosted by several individuals native to the country. We have explored the culture of a different country each month by feasting on delicious food, hearing the stories and history of the region, and often dancing away the latter part of the evening. Thus far we have visited Brazil, Sudan, Thailand & Cambodia, Peru and Nicaragua.

Moving Arts Festival at Earthdance, Summer 2004

Calling for Inspired Teachers, Creators!

We welcome workshops that align with our mission to inspire the art and spirit of improvisation, supporting and training people at all skills levels to find and develop expression in movement, theater and music.

The Numbers: What Do They Mean?

While attendance at workshops has dropped compared to last year, we remain committed to offering them as they are at the core of our vision. The brightest area on our revenue side has been donations and fund development at Earthdance. Thanks to a large donation of antique furniture, which eventually raised $38,000, plus several other sizeable donations, we have raised nearly $50,000 more than in 2002.

Increased staffing and the purchase of a truck for plowing and grounds work, a new industrial lawnmower, and new computers have all served to increase our expenses as well.

In the first 3 quarters of the year, compared to 2002, our budget has grown approximately 20%. This means we are experiencing increased revenues as well as increased expenses and looking for opportunities to create more sustainable, steady financial systems.

Growing pains are inevitable and our financial situation will be greatly affected by the upcoming major construction and associated capital campaign. Below is our anticipated 2003 Income and Expenses, not including expenses earmarked toward Capital Improvements.

Income	2002	2003 Projected
Workshop	$46,524	$47,848
Jams	$35,310	$33,696
Group Rental	$112,685	$130,698
Individual Rental	$6,554	$7,709
WMMAP/Studio Rental	$3,768	$10,933
Residential/Cabin	$8,500	$1,450
Donations	$20,174	$69,709
Other Income	$19,859	$16,324
Total Income	$253,374	$318,368
Expenses
Payroll Expenses	$60,323	$75,925
Program Operations	$91,060	$85,713
Professional Fees	$13,143	$18,366
Promotion	$9,919	$10,327
Office & Administration	$8,691	$7,295
Insurance	$9,816	$5,375
Facilities	$35,762	$48,720
Mortgage Interest	$13,601	$13,041
Total Expenses	$242,314	$264,762
Net	$11,060	$53,606
Mortgage Principal Paid	$5,807	$6,252
Depreciation	$7,500	$7,500

Earthdance Staff; Volunteer Program

Staffing Principles by Samantha
(how we live and work together...)

Taking care of business around Earthdance means running a much-loved and well-used retreat center. Phone calls and emails need to be answered, schedules designed and put out, toilets cleaned, meals cooked, welcomes warmly offered, firewood stacked, laundry done, bills paid, guests picked up in town, dishes put away, and floors mopped. And then it all has to be done again. And then again. All to say that living at Earthdance can mean doing a lot of work.

Why do we do it? We do it, quite simply, because we love this place and the magic that can be found here.

Often people come to volunteer here because they have come here for an event and have had a life changing experience. Even though Earthdance is an intense experience of service, we are in awe that it is a place where amazing things happen. We remember the posse of improvers, costumed in orange, dancing in the creek on a misty day. We remember the fifty-year old man, new to contact improv, crying at the closing circle of the jam. We remember seeing community come together again and again to create Eclectic Offerings of performance, late night joke telling sessions, to feed each other New Year's cake, and to offer support and affection just when you most needed it. It is these memories that make washing yet another dish, dumping another bucket of compost, washing another load of laundry and answering another phone call, worth doing.

After determining the grander reasons of why we live and work at Earthdance, the question becomes, how do we do it? For the amount of work and activity that happens here we have a very small crew. There are 6 staff living here and 2 staff who live nearby. Though we are small, we are mighty! I think the most important thing that we do to maintain our sanity is that we make it a priority to connect with each other. We have weekly staff meetings. The staff and some of our neighbors take turns teaching each other classes in yoga, writing, Pilates, modern dance and whatever else someone has up their sleeve. We have a 'Family Dinner,' once a week. We try to be really kind to each other, offering a hand when it is needed.. We attempt to be honest when making commitments to each other.

Having said that, we go easy on each other when something does fall through the cracks, understanding that there are more important things in this world than getting everything done. We remind each other that we came here to dance and grow and not just to work. Most of all we try to remember that living and working in community offers the opportunity to delve deeply into our hearts and grow into people that WORK HARD, PLAY HARD, AND LOVE BIG!

New Programs Initiated This Year!