2009 Credere Grantees:
Bea Birch ~ Agawamuck Project for the Fine and Practical Arts (Awarded $1250)
The Agawamuck Project for the Fine and Practical Arts in Philmont, NY will offer approaches to learning which honor not only the intellect but also the intelligence of the heart and hands. The Project will provide a therapeutic, supportive environment for at-risk youth and facilitate meetings, workshops, and apprenticeships with members of the local craft and trade community.
UPDATE
APFPA has taken many important steps in the past six months. With the support of individuals near and far, they have beautifully renovated the Center at 159 Main Street in Philmont, NY. Nathaniel Williams and Peter Buckbee with help from others were able to strip the linoleum off the walls, put up sheet rock, plaster etc and others helped with painting. After enthusiastic hours of hard work, they have a beautiful and welcoming ‘home’ that will be the heart of the initiative. In addition, Bea Birch has furthered conversations with local judicial authorities toward securing the program as an alternative to prison for drug-related crimes. Scheduling of different crafts and trades people is underway and the group is on the look-out for furniture for the Center. After a lot of hard work and fundraising efforts including an Improv benefit by Walking the Dog Theater (www.wtdtheater.org), the Center plans to open its doors in September!
APFPA now has a website, please check it out: www.agawamuckproject.org
Silas Beardslee ~ The Rimbi Farm Project (Awarded $1000)
The vision of the Rimbi Farm Project is to start a community-based and supported biodynamic farm in eastern rural Zimbabwe. Through community engagement a new type of agriculture will be introduced that not only has potential to boost harvest quantity through permaculture and crop rotation but also create job opportunities, a space for cultural exchange and ultimately, a new source of hope.Silas Beardslee is a recent graduate of the Youth Initiative Program (YIP) in Järna, Sweden.
UPDATE
Silas will leave for Zimbabwe on September 15, after six months of fundraising and other efforts and preparations for the Rimbi Farm Project, ´Balance for Zimbabwe´. The project is named for Balance Chibangwa, Silas´ close mentor and friend who died tragically in a car accident earlier this year. Read Silas´ 6 Month Credere Report here: . Visit the Rimbi Farm Website www.balanceforzimbabwe.org.
Benjamin-Jonas Meier ~ A Marionette Performance of 2 scenes (2 & 9) from Rudolf Steiner’s first Mystery Drama (awarded $750)
Why marionettes? Because marionettes have a real power to develop the faculty of imagination. To look at marionettes cultivates and reawakens our heart, as if it were again the heart of a child. These scenes from Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Drama were chosen because the characters in them are striving with their inner being. The language from Rudolf Steiner, the sounds and the rhythmic aspects of it, are composed in such a way that spiritual forces are revealed to the senses. The scenes will be performed by Benjamin-Jonas Meier and Cecelia Elinson. The backdrop will be painted by Nathaniel Williams.
UPDATE
Cecilia and Benjamin have been rehearsing regularly and preparing the scenes for performance. They´ve given a lot of attention to the speech and movements of the marionettes, and are using instructions that Rudolf Steiner gave to actors and speech artists to assist them in their creative process. The first performance took place as part of the Michaelmas celebration in Camphill Village in Copake, NY on October 3rd, 2010 in Fountain Hall.
Seamus Maynard ~ Music for Everyday Life (Awarded $1250)
Seamus is a young actor and musician who has studied with the Actor’s Ensemble in the U.S. and at the Artemis and Guildhall schools in England. Music for Everyday Life attempts to answer the questions: “How can the work of the artist be brought to its fullest potential? How can that continuously developing work be brought to the people purely, given freely as a gift, unblocked by doubts, fears, anxieties, and pride? And perhaps most importantly – how can simply living and being become a perpetual act of creativity…fulfilling us both on an individual and on a communal level?” Money from the Credere Fund will enable Seamus to explore these questions and offer his musical findings in a number of concerts in 2010.
UPDATE
In the spring, Seamus successfully organized a well-attended evening concert of new original music, co-composed with Johnathan Talbott, to benefit the Actor´s Ensemble (www.actorsensemble.org). The concert featured Johathan Talbott, Violin; Julian Seidenberg, Percussion; Seamus Maynard, Guitar. Seamus will organize a benefit concert to support Credere this November in Harlemville.
Patrick Stolfo ~ An Outdoor Flowform Cascade (Awarded $1000)
Patrick Stolfo is building a 9’ long, 4’ wide set of seven Flowforms to be installed on the grounds of Hawthorne Valley School in Ghent NY. This artistic/social centerpiece will honor former teacher William Ward. Flowforms are an artistic/functional offshoot of the pioneering research, in the realm of applied Goethean exploration into fluid movement, of Theodor Schwenk and John Wilkes. Most of the Flowform installations worldwide are in public settings where people, especially children, are magnetically drawn to the sight, sound and magic atmosphere of the pulsating water.
UPDATE
The installation was completed in early September, 2010 and ready to be viewed and enjoyed by the Hawthorne Valley community at the beginning of the school year. Efforts were made to create an aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound water feature that would both beautify the approach to the school and honor the memory of William Ward, a long-time, beloved Waldorf teacher. It has already become an area where children and adults congregate to socialize, relax, and play in proximity to the bubbling, rhythmically flowing water. The phenomenon also inspires a sense of wonder, raising scientific questions about the nature and properties of this vital, life giving fluid.
