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2010 Summer Spirt Garden Artist-in-Residence
The 2010 Summer Spirt Garden Artist-in-Residence, Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo is an internationally acclaimed performance poet, a frequent visiting teacher at the Esalen Institute and a 2010 TED Global Fellow. Iyeoka’s residency will include an evening performance of her poems and songs from her upcoming album “Say Yes” for “An Evening with Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo” on Saturday, August 21st at 8pm at the Big Sur Spirit Garden.
The Big Sur Spirit Garden Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program brings innovative, world-class artists to Big Sur for a month long residency sponsored by supporters of the Spirit Garden. While in residence, artists teach an interdisciplinary workshops, present a public event, and participate in community outreach. The program gives exposure to working touring artists, provides opportunities for collaboration with the local community of artists and teachers, and strengthens programmatic ties among poets, musicians, visual artists, dancers and other community arts entities. Past Artist in Residence include actress and educator Akuyoe Graham, Felix “Pupy” Insua Obbalubbe of Havana Cuba, and renowned American jazz trumpeter and composer, Hannibal Lokumbe.
The Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program is made possible by Jayson Fann, Founder and Director of the Big Sur Spirit Garden and the Esalen International Arts Festival.
REFLECTIONS OF a TED FELLOW (word 001)
As Fellows, we have seemed to have all naturally and rapidly evolved into these passionate global Ambassadors of the fellowship that selected us from all around the globe.
not my words but so Wiki-TRuE and mostly used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who work together as peers in the pursuit of knowledge or practice.
yes i looked it up. I had to. I appear to be actively living several definitions and variations of my current existence and i want to know what it all means. I am looking at my hands and my pen, my voice and my microphone, inquisitive with visions of what I have been selected to become.
I have witnessed an incredible thing, my friends.
The incredible things also happen to be information that I am really excited to share. First of all, thank you for all the emails and phone calls asking me about my experience at a TED conference as a “TED Fellow”–kind of a new-ish term at TED. This is only the 2nd class of TED Global Fellows- a new initiative.
My confession is that I was gifted with silence for 4 days after my experience in Oxford last week. Yup. I lost my voice. I saw it coming of course. It began on tuesday night at the Late Night event honoring the Fellows hosted by Johnnie Walker at the Freud Bar where I was the featured presenting artist. I was so excited about singing and playing my tambourine drum. It may have been a combination of drinking lots of exquisite top shelf whiskey with all my TED Fellows in the room as well as Imogen Heap and I LOVE Imogen Heap and I was having SO much fun singing and dancing that I pushed my voice a little too far forgetting all my important breath work that I intentionally teach to help me remember to do it. I talked so much the days between the 11th and the 16th my voice began it’s process of retreat and forced me to rejuvenate.
Rejuvenation is the reflection I am connected to at this moment. In my work as an educator in the midst of completing my first major album release, my spirit was aging so quickly with all the new and incredible moments I was moving. I needed an opportunity to allow my spirit to absorb a source of a different color. The color included red spelling the name TED.
TED is owned by a non-profit foundation and devoted to “ideas worth spreading”. This is the platform that brought us all together.
The tag was a simple promise, one that we have been more than willing to participate in exploring.
I experienced this particular Talk in Oxford on Wednesday morning of the 2010 TED Global Conference. It was the day after a VERY late night the previous night at the Late Night hosted by Johnnie Walker. I was so proud of myself for making it on time to the 8:30 am morning Session 3 live from the Simulcast Lounge, a colorful comfy chair, bean-bagged room that slingshot the sweet aroma of coffee, tea and honey. This was a great place to view the talks if you were unable to make it to the Main stage theater before it reached capacity. So there I was, watching Elif Shafak pull words and meaning into focus in her talk that included mention of spiritual companions, parallel conversations, and gaps that effect stories. So much happened between us in those 18 minutes. The effect resembled rejuvenation and a determination for my spirit to explore the joys of creating more moments to writing. I am so ripe now remembering how fully I surrendered to applying what she spoke with the life as a writer that I am currently living. When you have time to watch this talk, give thanks to the soon becomING your current.
Let me know what speaks to you and I will continue to give you glimpses of what spoke to me.
Elif Shafak explicitly defies definition — her writing blends East and West, feminism and tradition, the local and the global, Sufism and rationalism, creating one of today’s most unique voices in literature.
BRAVE NEW VOICES in LA………YAaaaAAAAaaAA!!!!
HERE is the arc of our influences…
Oh yes…it’s back!!! The international poetry youth slam event of the year. It is the event that showed me how imperative it is for me to empower MORE youth to pick up this incredible art form that is steadily shifting and inspiring us into limitless directions. Since my invitation last year to host, perform and present my STAY POET professional development workshop at Brave New Voices in Chicago in 2009, I went on to winning a title at the Individual World Poetry Slam competition and spending my year implementing this passion to focus on the youth as often as I am able. I have such an incredible personal story to spread and I have seen countless youth who have picked up a pen to explore and implement the strategic retelling of just as many incredible stories.
On the record
We speak for more than just ourselves with our poems.
TIPS TO SLAM:
-Create a voice that has an intention
-The subject can be a struggle. Pick one that allows you to offer your unique voice or a new perspective.
-It’s ok if poetry begins as just a hobby for you. The more you write, the better you will become at your hobby. Your interest will go on and on until the break of dawn. The break of dawn for me was the moment I implemented a plan to leave my full time, well paying pharmacy job to write and perform my poems full time.
-There is a part of life not being documented. Find it. Write about it. Slam it. Then stay a poet.
At the Brave New Voices festival there is an event featuring the finalists of the Global Climate Change poetry contest, this event takes place on Wednesday, July 21st at Club Nokia. Winners gain a free trip to The Sundance Film Festival in January 2011.
BRAVE NEW VOICES SPEAK GREEN
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE FESTIVAL THIS WEEK VISIT: http://www.bravenewvoices.org/
Iyeoka, who was recently selected as a 2010 Global TED Fellow
attended the TED Global Conference last week in Oxford, England. She had been invited to present songs off her latest EP “Yellow Brick Road”.
Iyeoka is currently back in LA filming her “behind the music” video journey leading to the completion of her debut album with Underground Sun based in Venice CA. The record will be released as a new full length album in the fall of 2010.
Report from TEDGlobal Session 9: The Unknown Brains
TED Fellow Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo performs one of her poems, “She Does Not Know Her Beauty” on identity and pride, a favorite of her mother’s.
Photo: TED / James Duncan Davidson
TEDGlobal 2010. Oxford, UK, July 12-16, 2010. Credit: Robert Leslie / TED
LYRICS to 2 songs from Iyeoka (requested by lovers of lyrics–so here it is)
this time around
VERSE 1:
If the only sun shining for me now
Was over a mountain or around a hill
If all i ever needed in this life time of unfamiliar
Was freedom from a wishing well
If we could ride a storm for a thousand years
hands picking cotton till we all remembered how to heal
No matter what the song says/ No matter what the soul says
This time around were gonna know exactly why we came here
CHORUS:
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
VERSE 2:
He remembers stepping out the front door into a storm of rain
she remembers chasing empty with old memories of better days
As simple as the air we breathe coming in a little cleaner
Take a moment to sing for love to bring on a new season for this change
Chorus
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
BRIDGE***
This Time around
We’re gonna watch the sunrise
These days are changing
Like never before
What happens if we stop dreaming
This time around
Chorus
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
Move your soul to let more love in
Find the door is finally open
See the clouds of pollution breaking…
this time around
Take a moment to sing for love
Take a moment to sing for love
Take a moment to sing for love…
this time around
Was over a mountain or around a hill
If all i ever needed in this life time of unfamiliar
Was freedom from a wishing well
hands picking cotton till we all remembered how to heal
No matter what the song says/ No matter what the soul says
This time around were gonna know exactly why we came here
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
He remembers stepping out the front door into a storm of rain
she remembers chasing empty with old memories of better days
Take a moment to sing for love to bring on a new season for this change
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
This Time around
We’re gonna watch the sunrise
These days are changing
Like never before
What happens if we stop dreaming
This time around
This Time around
The days are changing
Like Never before
This time around
All the world may never know
What happens if we stop dreaming
Find the door is finally open
See the clouds of pollution breaking…
this time around
Take a moment to sing for love
Take a moment to sing for love…
this time around
the Yellow Brick Road song
| Written by: |
| Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo ©
Verse 1- I see this fantasy taking me from Kansas to serenity chorus- I know how possible we are Verse 2- Pressing on in the eyes of a wise man’s conspiracy chorus- I know how possible Bridge- bum bah dum bum bah dum bum bah There’s no tornado Verse 3- Pressing on in the eyes of the child that’s inside of me Yeah! chorus- I know how possible Outro- I know just how possible bum bah dum bum bah dum bum bah So possible/This is where we belong |
| Written by: IYEOKA IVIE OKOAWO |
So THAT’S what they mean by “Your Brain On TED”
I’m sure a TED Conference is a perfect fit for plenty of people, but I’m just soaking in all the benefits this type of conference serves to feed a poet like me. These days, my poems are my work and my work are my poems. I am like soil on fertilizer. Every talk spins me into a testimony of thought. Due to excessive nutrients of my ripe creative canvas and constant opportunities to have a couple of dozen friends discuss how we could blissfully and diligently implement Ruth Ann Harnisch‘s talk and how to find time to experience a few lessons suggested from “Six Things I Learned During Six Months of Doing Nothing”, I am anticipating a high return on my goal to experience long term sustainability of my nurtured spirit. Here is a short list of the gems I received from Ruth. They were thoughts I never knew I needed to hear until the messages resonated enough for me to share them with my pen and paper.
I narrowed it down to a top 3 tailor made message just for me that appeared to synthesize loud and clear.
1) I can do nothing whenever I want. Is your time constantly being hijacked by other people?
2) All I want to do is breath and eat. Imagine giving yourself a permission slip to experience this sometime in the near future.
3) Try not to live your life like it’s a habit. You deserve so much better than these common features of an automatic behavior: lack of awareness, unintentionality, uncontrollability.
An independent thought:
IF SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING, CHANGE SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT YOU aRe DOING.
And Now the Good News…
I’m off to Oxford today as a 2010 TED Global Fellow! To be far away from home is not always easy for me. Oxford was an easy destination to say YES to. What helps me in the abundance of necessary travel is the understanding that what we were meant to experience is not always going to be available to us at home.
The gift about the TED process is this…
I was required to dig deep and answer many questions regarding what I am doing with my lifeforce, my work, my art, my music and why I have chosen this particular path. It has been a fascinating experience to discover those who find my path relevant to showcase to a larger community outside of the tribes already exposed and supportive of my work and journey.
I decided to answer the call to present as a TED Fellow because it was the right time. The right time presented itself the moment I recieved a twitter message from a friend who recognized the direction of my journey. Sometimes I find it necessary to slow down and respond to the unscripted opportunities drifting around me. This is when the road to a TED Global Conference became my current destination.
There are a series of questions I have been asking myself regarding what I would like to accomplish with my movement of my new music and poetry. What part of me that is changing and growing can be a good idea worth spreading with a community encouraged to listen?
I have a very good sense of what the answer is and part of the bigger gift to myself is to allow these ideas of changing and growing to stay with me until the moment arrives for me to finally share the good news to all of global family.
How Season 7 of “So You Think You Can Dance” is Revolutionizing the Institution of Dance
A major theme for me has been centered around my very personal desire to change and grow.
When I think of the type of support I need to travel the extra distance of this existence, I think of my family, my friends, my colleagues and fans who have encouraged me for over a decade to continue to invest and pursue my art. I am grateful for a series of landmark experiences that has helped me believe that I could achieve more.
At the core of the series “So You Think You Can Dance”, I have recognized a similar level of support demonstrated in the producers and choreographers involved in the show. This year in particular, SYTYCD is becoming even more focused on their goals to, as Debbie Allen put it 2 seasons ago, “revolutionize the art of dance”.
This season, only 10 finalists will be selected from intensive auditions and then paired with an “all-star” competitor from a previous season. Not only do I think this to be a brilliant marketing plan for the show, especially from a fan’s perspective, but I think the mentorship potential of having a mixed competitors union can further the spirit that SYTYCD is capable of igniting in the audience and the growing genre the show is hoping to directly inspire.
Before I head off to the west coast to finally complete my album and consequently loose access to my beloved DVR, I decided to watch a marathon of 6 episodes of the series. In one of the episodes, a judge travels to the home of a contestant where the dancer and the family await the word on whether they have been selected for the final cast. The compassion and love exhibited by Nigel Lythgoe, who is also the show’s executive producer, Mary Murphy, Mia Michaels, and the other judges truly demonstrated to me what I believe pulls a priceless human element to the experience and the harsh reality of rejection and success in the world of competitive arts.
I LOVE this show. I love seeing the support exhibited by these families for their children who are so passionately pursuing their dream. Unlike the typical American Idol contestant, all of the dancers who make it to Vegas seem to have a deeper connection to their dream and a raw drive to excel in the diversity of dance. With attitudes of “whatever may come”, and “their is no other option for me but this movement”, I am humbled watching their level of commitment.
And they come.
Year after year you see these young dancers return a little bit stronger with hopes that this year might be the year the world will recognize why they keep coming back to dance and be challenged. SYTYCD has seemed to tap into the natural FACT that there is more to it then just a dance and a dancer. There is truly something special about the experience of watching passionate people grow and fully blossom in a summer, in a year, in a decade.
On another related note, it is MY DREAM to create a composition that will one day be recognized and used for a choreographed moment at a rehearsal, an audition or at show time for SYTYCD. I often find motivation to write songs by imagining ways a dancer could connect to my lyrics and to the melody and the music. I like to think that there is a bigger purpose behind why I keep getting pulled season after season to witness these major transformations in these contestants. I feel myself breathing, dancing, laughing, crying, cheering and growing with them.
I am currently creating some extremely compelling songs with my producer Francis Phan and my producer, songwriting partner David Franz for this new album we will release in the Fall. Many of these songs I have been intentionally creating with the hopes to inspire an audience of dancers and choreographers to access the full potential of their art with help from the music.
-Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo
Poet, Recording Artist
2010 TED Global Fellow
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Recent Posts
- Light Breaks Through
- affirmations in the key of transformation
- DREAM BIG
- My imagination has a spirit of her own…
- All About Iyeoka
- Phanai Media Group Pressroom
- “Until I Overflow” Workshop Feedback Forms
- 2010 Summer Spirt Garden Artist-in-Residence
- General Introductions to Magic and the Art of Choice
- She Does Not Know Her Beauty
- THIS IS MY MEDICINE
- WHEN THE “SIDE PROJECT” BECOMES THE BIG DEAL
- the Yellow Brick Road Song (Official VIDEO)
- REFLECTIONS OF a TED FELLOW (word 001)
- BRAVE NEW VOICES in LA………YAaaaAAAAaaAA!!!!
