NOoSPHERE Arts to Present An Ecstatic Solstice Celebration This Month

NOoSPHERE Arts will kick off its outdoor season with a music, dance, and performing arts event celebrating the summer solstice on Saturday, June 24th at 7pm. Held in the spectacular, one-of-a-kind setting of wildflower meadows stretching across the roofs of an industrial plant against the iconic backdrop of the NYC skyline, the event will be centered around a Sufi opening ritual honoring nature's cycles, performed by Whirling Dervish Farima Berenji. Farima-a Sufi Master and Magi and her sacred dancers will be accompanied by the klezmer music and Sephardic folk melodies of The Shul Band. The ceremony has been designed as a unique blend of Muslim and Jewish elements-epitomizing the possibility of interfaith collaboration.

The main event will involve solo acts, duets, and a whirling performance in which several participants-including Cyr wheelers-will interpret the movements of individual planets around a star. The show will also feature poetry readings and storytelling by Master Farima and be accompanied by the live music of the Shul Band. Following the whirlers' performances, The Shul Band will keep playing against the darkening night sky.

In addition, don't miss the unveiling of Westerlies (a sonic and sculptural installation devised for the Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof) by the 2023 season's KWBS Residency Award winners: Ezra Campelli and Jeremy Clemente.

Westerlies is a captivating sonic and sculptural installation specifically designed for the enchanting Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof. Immerse yourself in this unique experience as you encounter a copse of towering bamboo aeolian flutes, their haunting melodies harmonized by the prevailing winds that gracefully sweep across the rooftop garden.

Stroll through the vibrant wildflowers, and you will find yourself attuned to the whimsical cadence of the ever-changing wind cycles-an essential yet often unseen force intricately intertwined with the delicate balance of life around us. With the transition of seasons, from the blossoming of spring to the waning of fall, the Aeolian forest's ethereal symphony will effortlessly evolve alongside the winds' shifting directions and intensities.

Westerlies invites the audience to embrace the harmonious convergence of art, nature, and the ever-present winds that shape our world. Step into this captivating space and let the melodies carried by the bamboo flutes guide your contemplation, inspiring a profound connection with the environment we call home.

A Whirling dance by Farima Berenji @ Last Frontier NYC

Farima Berenji is an internationally acclaimed dance artist, ethnologist, choreographer, instructor, and archaeologist specializing in ancient, sacred, classical, and folk dances spanning the millenniums of Persian civilization, the Silk Road, and the Near East.

The Shul Band, led by Adam Feder, plays music rooted in Jewish folk music but drawing on the musical wellsprings of New York City and of the whole world. It is equally prayerful and raucous, meditative and joyful. The band has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall.

Collaboratively, Ezra Campelli and Jeremy Clemente bridge ecology, sculpture, and biology to create prototypes that seek to reconcile the quality of life between human and non-human agents. In breaking down the distinction between humanity and nature, their artworks intend to display natural phenomena in ways that upend our most deeply held assumptions about life. Their creative process takes place in the studio, the field, and the lab, where the sensibilities of experimentation, craft, and landscape all overlap.

The Solstice celebration will be the opening event of NOoSPHERE Arts' WE ARE NATURE: Rising and Falling-the fourth iteration of the nonprofit's annual rooftop series. Each season's theme references an aspect of systems thinking, an approach to environmental sustainability spearheaded by leading thinker Fritjof Capra, a longtime NOoSPHERE Arts collaborator. This view considers all the major problems of our time-including energy, economics, climate change, and inequality-as interconnected and interdependent. In 2023, the summer series explores the theme of Nature's Cycles. A cycle is an interval of time during which a characteristic event occurs, often repeated regularly or in a sequence of events. There are cycles in everything-seasons, circadian rhythms, cellular life, planetary systems, politics, and economics-and cycles in one realm affect cycles in others. Thinking about cycles can help us to discern structure, order, and patterns in the world around us, and to realize that everything in life will ebb and flow-an encouraging thought in times of darkness.

NOoSPHERE Arts is a 501c3 organization and cultural center led by a team of international creatives whose backgrounds blend the arts and sciences. Its freewheeling, multidisciplinary approach engages diverse audiences and builds community through a range of vibrant public events in its indoor-outdoor home in Brooklyn, NYC. The only multidisciplinary arts center in the Greenpoint neighborhood, it is a welcoming platform where resident and migrant artists alike connect with locals. Uniting music, dance, visual arts, theater, film, poetry & prose, its collaborative productions at the nexus of art and eco-awareness harness the power of art to drive action toward green living, fair play, and oneness.

NOoSPHERE Arts' 2023 programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and Broadway Stages.

Additional promotional support as well as funding for rehearsal space for the whirlers, is being provided by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing). CRS serves as a spiritual and creative laboratory, providing a diverse and international community of artists and healers across disciplines with opportunities to experiment and share their unique inner visions to illuminate what is true and universal.

A Sema Gathering (free) and two Whirling workshops (Basic and advanced Whirling practices) will be offered on the day following the event (Sun, Jun 25: Beginner: 12-1:30 pm, Advanced: 2-3:30 pm).

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