CREATING FERTILE GROUNDS FOR HEALING
During the Summer and early Fall of 2022, our touring company facilitated several Creating Fertile Grounds for Healing workshops around the city as a part of the community engagement work as a way to ground the creative process for Rest.Rise.Move.Nourish.Heal. Our guiding questions were, "What are you planting/seeding in your community as a journey towards healing?" and "What are you planting/seeding in your community as a journey toward liberation?"
Here are a few images recapping the engagement and some reflections from our community participants and company members/facilitators.
Testimonial from participant
“Creating Fertile Grounds for Healing was a transformative, full sensory experience. The Red Clay family invited nature and participants to co-create our time together throughout the afternoon through dancing, singing, sharing, listening, discovering, learning, soaking in the sunshine, and breaking bread together. It was a beautiful healing-centered experience.”- Lori
Company Reflections
“At each CFGFH workshop, I learn more and more about what it means to be in community with others who share both similar and different physical relationships to land. During our last workshop I witnessed beautiful bodies choosing to come together with individual intentions of creating a space where we all were the focus. I enjoyed the body conversations that were happening which showed the pure care and appreciation we each had for one another. This connection seemed to have genuine roots purposely tied together to foster space and time for communal and cross-cultural healing that will only exist in its own time. Together we planted a seed that we may or may not be around to see at harvest time. But there is a collective knowing that our work and our legacy will initiate transformations.”
-Destine Young
“It’s been a treat to walk with people through their own exploration of healing and liberation and how it shows up for them. The co-facilitation style truly embodies the communal and supportive essence of our work.”
-Chaniece Holmes
“The creating fertile grounds workshops provided a new avenue of sharing knowledge with audiences that was pretty cool.”
-Leana Allen
“When talking about community and relationship building, I often come back to the Creating Fertile Grounds Workshop Series. The agreements, the tender and insightful questions, and the space to communicate verbally and physically brought me closer to newcomers and old friends of the Red Clay Dance community. I loved facilitating a space where people can engage with movement with more than just a "performance". Actually, we all ended up sharing movement together, which felt like we weren't performing, but we were sharing parts of ourselves that connect to Urban Growers farm and the Chicago land. I hope to continue to be a part of spaces that make intentional time for conversation, movement, and joy.”
-Rahila Coats