Kate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote about Don Freed on CBC Thanks for posting this - I loved reading about his project in an article on the jmdl some time ago - http://www.jmdl.com/articles/docs/001101tgam.cfm good to see this coming to fruition.
The dulcimer player Rick Scott, who I met in Vancouver last year (who told the hitchhiking story of being picked up by Joni), still does a lot of kids shows way up in the remote Northern territories every year - he sent me an interview he did some time ago with Joseph Roberts in The Common Ground magazine - here's an extract: > Rick Scott: "I also have an incredibly clear recollection > of my feelings when I was a kid. I know that children > feel those things too. > Joseph Roberts: Even the fourteen year olds that are > walking around.... > RS: Especially the fourteen year olds. I do high school shows > and their feelings are right out there, like a neon sign. They walk > into a gymnasium for my show, sometimes six hundred of them, > and they look at me like I'm lunch. They are going to do me, > they are going to have some fun with this sucker, and I am able > to turn the table around so that this person they were going to > poke fun at, is suddenly somebody they're going to have some > fun with, and we're creating a show together and their feelings > have become the show. > JR: They finally have something to do with their energy. > RS: I was in Hartley Bay in May, an hour and a half by bush plane > out of Rupert, the most remote school in the entire universe. I'm > supposed to do an evening performance, but it's cancelled, > because the elders are having a sing-along. So the next day > I'm playing in the foyer of the school and there's seventy kids, > plus a bunch of grown-ups, and one was the elder of the village, > the minister of the church, a native man in his late eighties. > I opened with a song called "You're Here", which is basically a > "hi, you're here, and I'm really glad you're here, you might have > come from anywhere, but you're here now, and I'm so glad you > are." After the show I'm messing with the kids, and this elder > comes up and takes my hand in both his hands and says "You > taught me something, minister to minister." He says you taught > me how important it is for your congregation to be there with you, > and how much you appreciate them coming. And I'm just > flabbergasted by this minister telling me that suddenly I've > hooked into what he's trying to do on a spiritual level. I'm just > up there playing the music and to have an elder acknowledge > my poetry and my song verifies it for me that this silly little > melody actually runs deep. > JR: A beautiful story > RS: The kids up there are great, you know. They have a natural > flow, they still have the spirit, let's do it, let's dance, let's make it > happen, and let's honour it, and admit that it's really real... > JR: And it's sacred, too. > RS: It's important, and it's vital. It's as vital as air, and the kids > have the ability like no one else to bop into that stream and > float down and play in it. I remember walking by an inlet, full of > heavy thoughts, and these native kids are diving off into the > water, swimming around with their clothes on, and because of > that sense of wonder that they have, they're hypothermically > correct. The water there is so cold, that a pilot lost his life > recently after crashing, because he tried to swim to shore. > But no one told the kids about hypothermia yet, so they can > become like fish. >>> ~~~~ () Joseph Roberts (from an interview in The Common Ground) ~~~~ All the best PaulC
