Orff Olympics

Yesterday afternoon we took a photo of the 100 folks in our Orff Course gathered around their flags. 32 countries represented this year, 48 total from past years that have taken the trip to California to further their service to children and have a rollicking good time in the process. Besides that troublesome Antartica, every continent represented.  

Yesterday evening we watched the Parade of the Nations in the Olympic openings. Just over 200 countries represented, gathered to compete and hoping to bring glory back to their country with a shiny gold or silver medal. They looked like they were also having a good time gathered with fellow athletes worldwide.

The similarities are worth noting. Through accident of birth or tragedy of exile or the good luck to choose one’s home, everyone feels a certain allegiance to their country. Part of who they are is shaped by the culture, the economy, the weather and biome, the language, the food, their neighbors and so on. But part is the mystery of their particular character, the way they are attracted to one slice of human potential and have chosen to cultivate that through rigorous discipline and commitment. The athletes drawn to develop the strength, coordination, grace, expression of the human body, the musicians and dancers likewise committing to different muscle groups connected to producing coherent, powerful and beautiful sounds. Crossing national borders, they may have more in common with the athletes/ musicians they meet than with their next-door neighbor back home. Those involved in similar pursuits understand each other even when the language, dress and customs are different.

The differences are also worth noting. Athletes compete, musicians connect. Com-petition seen rightly is a kind of sacred covenant, two or more people who worship the same god and petition that god together (“com” the prefix that means “with”—com-panions break bread together—“con pan” in Spanish, com-rades are roommates sharing the same chamber –camera in Latin, etc.). They play against each other to spur themselves to higher levels of achievement and glory. After a good sports match, you sometimes see the players on opposite teams thank each other with genuine admiration. So at its best, athletes also connect and jazz jam sessions and battle of the bands are filled with examples of how musicians can compete.

However, in our win and lose culture, the fans are mostly much more interested in the product (final score) of the game than the process of the competition. So the drama of the Olympics is who will bring home the gold. The commentators yesterday mentioned one country (I forget which) in which the athlete could be in danger of being murdered when he returned home if he didn’t win the medal, having brought disgrace on the nation. And Michael Phelps said in his interview that he was proud to be carrying the flag in the parade for “the greatest country on the earth.” (Really, Michael? Have you been following the news lately?) So lovely to have people gather from around the planet and I hope some of the athletes make some lifelong connections with fellow athletes from different places. (Do they?) But the general vibe is the same old sad story of who’s the best, who wins, who loses.

Meanwhile, at the Orff Olympics in the Carmel Valley, we gather together with the opposite intention. I teach a tongue-twister in English and then invite my students to share one from Finland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, Taiwan, Zimbabwe and none of them “win,” but we are all refreshed by the exchange. We create dances and music from the confluences of our backgrounds and something new in this world arises from the convergence of diverse energies. Because music and dance is the slice of humanity that chose us, we care about beauty more than points, aim for connection—with ourselves, with our musical ancestors, with our fellow musicians and dancers, with the act of creation itself. And because we are teachers, we make it all yet larger with the noble act of passing it on to children. Help them make the connections they need to grow into a whole human being and refresh the world with the convivial connected conversations we so desperately need.

So while the helicopters hover over the Rio stadium and the TV cameras all point there, one hundred beautiful souls in a small retreat center in the Carmel Valley are holding their own Orff Olympics that few will ever hear of, but the world will benefit from. 100 teachers teaching a few hundred kids means some 25 to 50,000 kids will have their days made just a bit brighter by the efforts these teachers have made to bring them great music and dance artfully and joyfully taught. That’s newsworthy, yes?

Like Riding a Bicycle

Like everyone, I could use exercise, but the idea of adding the gym to my schedule has never appealed. So mostly, besides dancing with children, riding my bike is my exercise of choice, often with a practical end (an errand) or an aesthetic one (riding through the park or by the ocean and then sit down with a book).

But this is not easy when traveling. It has been some seven weeks since I’ve ridden a bike. But today I did. And as I got on the bike and headed east on the Carmel Valley Road, I thought, “This feels great! So familiar. It’s almost like–well, like riding a bicycle!”

As I do, I equally enjoyed the uphill, that sense of working to defy gravity’s pull and feel like you’re making an effort that reaps rewards—in this case, cardio-vascular and muscular ones. And then the prize of zooming down the downhills. The two go hand-in-hand—wouldn’t want to spend my whole life trudging uphill, but neither would I choose the free ride where gravity does all the work. Kind of like the relationship between reading and TV.

I noted smoke uncomfortably close over the hills I was approaching and helicopters going into the cloud. Later I found out that this was a control burn to contain the fire by giving it less to burn when it approached that area. There’s a deep metaphor buried in there, but I have homework to correct and no time to uncover it. Work on it yourself.

Meanwhile, I was thinking while biking how darn happy I am. Wake up each day with the mind purring with Level III class plans, the heart thrumming from the pleasure teaching brings, the body awake to the rhythms within about to be brought out for exercise, the soul looking forward to exploring yet another corner of its territory through beautiful and powerful music. Have I mentioned that I love my job? In these weeks, no regular biking or zazen meditation or cooking good meals or going out to the movies, things I normally think I need to feel some measure of contentment. But it is enough to simply teach. Especially in this course that I’ve helped craft to give wings to my vision of this Orff approach. Especially with my fun, funny, smart, vibrant and musical colleagues. And equally my  fun, funny, smart, vibrant and musical students. Especially in this beautiful valley, in spite of its smoky mornings.

There was very little transition time between my Sicily vacation and my Jazz Course and very little between the Jazz Course and the Level Training. I wondered if I would remember how to do it. But it turns out that it was easy. It was familiar. It was home.

Like riding a bicycle.

Going Nowhere Joyfully

We took seven steps to the right, then seven steps to the left. Repeat. Three to the right, three to the left (twice). One right, one left, one right, one left. At the end, we were exactly where we started. All that energy expended and we got nowhere at all. But oh, so joyfully.

It was folk dance night at our International Orff Levels Training. This was Alunelu, our opening dance. From there, we continued to whirl, twirl, run, leap, twist, hop, jump, spin, rock, clap, rise, fall, turn, and march our way through eight more dances, often in a circle going nowhere, always holding someone’s hand and feeling their temperature, weight, smooth or rough hands, astounded by the variety as we switched partners. We whooped, shouted, laughed and got beautifully quiet when the old recording of Ma Navu came on, that old familiar voice that I heard four decades ago circling around a big tree under a full moon on a crisp autumn night at Antioch College in Ohio and then heard again when I was a student in this same Orff course back in the 1980’s. The young people sensed that these recorded singers and musicians were from a different time and that the people who danced this before us were isolated Americans trying to capture a sliver of the old village life, when the community gathered and celebrated our brief moment on this earth together by circling around without ambition to get somewhere, just savor and enjoy.

We purposefully decided to try to find those old recordings (most on the Folkcraft label), both for my own nostalgic cravings and to introduce them to the next generation. But the last two dances, we did what we’ve often done before—assembled a live band, this one complete with tuba, accordion, concertina, panpipe, tinwhistle, recorder, clarinet, piano and drumset. The rise of the DJ and loss of young folks dancing to live music, any style, is one of the many sadnesses I feel about “progress”  (along with the end of the handwritten letter, good penmanship, walking the streets without texting and sitting under a tree a bit bored until the world catches our attention).

But it’s never too late to have a happy childhood and that’s a good deal of what we’re doing here. If you stop and think about it, it’s pretty remarkable to hear grown adults share with each other with such childlike excitement, “ I got to be the big Billy Goat Gruff today!!!” While the fires blaze away miles to the south, we’re here putting out the flames of ambition and spending our days circling joyfully in the center of the gifted moment, going nowhere at all.

The World on Fire

The smoke was especially thick this morning here in the Carmel Valley. After casually feeling that everything was under control and the fire was heading south, it was a good reminder to pay attention. Got up and brushed my teeth, taught my class as I’m supposed to and didn’t think about it too much, but just enough to remember that this deserves some thought.

Between this fire and the record hot temperatures everywhere and the non-stop epidemic of mass shootings everywhere, it indeed feels like the world is on fire. None of us would choose it, but the good thing is that “when a lovely flame dies, and smoke gets in your eyes,” people perk up and rise to the challenge. Everywhere here are homemade signs thanking the firefighters and it does a person’s spirit good to drive by these folks huddled together to discuss strategy and make the next foray into containing the blaze.

Crisis indeed brings people together and ignites our intelligence and capacity to solve problems. It shakes us out of our slumber, brings us out of our complacent stupor and gets us thinking. When genuine thought is present, and tied to necessary action, hope is restored. You just have to see the fire and smell the smoke to take it seriously enough to get up and shut off the damn TV.

Damn those politicians in power who are try to pretend that climate change isn’t real. Who try to convince us that we don’t have to deal with our racist history come back to bite us in the ass. That we can just go on with business as usual and have a nice day and please don’t talk politics on Facebook, just stick to the photo of that great meal you just had. Two days after 9/11, Bush was telling people to go shopping. Don’t waste time grieving and or analyzing how our invasion of Iraq fueled the terrorist movement there. Just get thee to the mall.

No one loves bad news and it’s hard to sustain the emergency mode for long— our nervous system was not designed for that. But a little bit of alarm is indeed vital to solve the immense problems that threaten to engulf us if we leave them neglected too much longer.

The world is indeed on fire and we better pay attention. Wake up and smell the smoke.

Miawoezo

Funga Alafia has been good to me. A simple welcome song quickly learned, with gestures, powerful accompanying rhythms, movement and an uplifting text. But even our best friends can start to wear on us a bit. I needed a break.

Along comes the Ghanaian Ewe song Miawoezo. The text and melody a bit more challenging, no traditional accompanying gestures, not easy to make the instant connection with the group that Funga allows. But I love the translation:

“Thank you for the trouble you took to come here. Welcome.”

Now a hundred students are gathering from 20 countries from around the planet to converge here in Carmel Valley, where the ash from the nearby fires covered my car this morning. But it would take more than a raging fire miles away to dissuade them. They’ve been plotting and planning and saving and taking a great deal of trouble to come for two weeks of Orff training. The Level II and III people need no convincing. They felt last year the comfort, excitement, beauty and power of gathering with like-minded musicians, dancers and teachers to play, sing, dance and create their way to understanding. The Level I folks have an inkling they’re about to experience something that may transform their lives, both personally and professionally, but they don’t know wholly just how much it will yet. They’ve been to a one-day workshop or a conference or an Intro. course and got a taste of the feast to come and they’re ready to sit down at the table. Or rather, to get up and dance on the table!

Likewise, the course teachers. They have come from Germany, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Annapolis, Denver and San Francisco to get the chance to hang out with each other yet again—some of us have been together doing this for over 20 years! The stories from all those past years animate the dinner conversations, even as we collect more for the dinners to come. We will work harder than we like to remember, not only teaching hours a day, but correcting papers and being on call for all the little and big mishaps that can happen when 100 people share a small space. But for all of us, living busy and fulfilling lives, this two-week bubble each year is both the carrot that lures us into August and the satiated dessert that lingers on our taste buds as we head into the school year.

At the end of the Jazz Course, several students were thanking me for committing to going to sing at The Jewish Home at the end of a long week, impressed by my altruism and stamina and long-term commitment to help other people. But though I could have responded with, “It’s the right thing to do. It’s my duty. It’s the way I pay back the people who helped me,” none of that is precisely true. I do it for the great pleasure it brings to me, the way it actually re-charges me at the end of a long week and sends me into the weekend refreshed. It’s not philanthropy, it’s love—of the people, of the music, of the beautiful energy released in that room that refreshes all of us like a gentle rain in a drought or the sun emerging after a storm. And the same with this course and indeed, every course I teach.

Still, it is proper to thank the people for the trouble they took, for valuing the right thing, for sacrificing a bit not only for their own later pleasure, but to bring happiness to the children they teach.

Miawoezo! And off we go!