"Artist in Resonance" Community Singing Series
Calling ALL voices! You are invited to come and sing with us! Community Singing is accessible to anyone and everyone. All songs are taught call and response (no need to read music or have previous singing experience). They are simple, yet beautiful when sung together. Some songs are rounds, some have multiple simple parts, and some have simple harmonies. This kind of singing is for the sheer joy of being together in community, and there is no performance. Come experience the pleasure of simple connection with others through music.
(These events are a collaboration between Youth Initiative High School + Driftless Folk School. Tickets are for individual community singing sessions.)
Details for all of the events in this series are as follows…
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Tuesday, May 21:
Community Sing Co-Led by Annie Schlaefer and Linnea Champ
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Wednesday, May 22:
Community Sing Co-Led by Annie Schlaefer and Linnea Champ
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
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PAST EVENTS:
Wednesday, November 1, 2023:
Community Sing Led by Liz Rog
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Ancestor Altar Youth Initiative High School, Viroqua, WI
For this session, you are invited to bring something for the ancestor altar, like a photo or a representation of Ancestors, which you can then bring back home with you.
Thursday, November 2, 2023:
Community Sing Led by Liz Rog
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Tuesday, February 6, 2024:
Songs of Comfort and Healing
Led by Barbara McAfee
This gathering will focus on singing as healing -- for people facing health challenges, caregivers, and all who walk through difficult times. Barbara will weave stories, songs, and simple practices to bring to this sacred work.
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Wednesday, February 7, 2024:
Raucous and Tender Song Circle
Led by Barbara McAfee
Join Barbara for a feast of songs to awaken our wild souls. We'll holler and coo and swoon at the beauty we make together.
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Tuesday, March 5, 2024:
Community Sing Led by Lyndsey Scott
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Wednesday, March 6, 2024:
Community Sing Led by Lyndsey Scott
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Tuesday April 9, 2024:
Community Sing Led by Sarina Partridge
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Wednesday April 10, 2024:
Community Sing Led by Sarina Partridge
6:30 - 8:00 pm (6:00 pm to socialize)
Old Main Building: 321 East Decker St., Viroqua, WI
Song Leader Bios:
Sarina Partridge
Sarina Partridge is a musician, song-leader, educator and activist in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her passion is to create and share songs in service to community and the wild - songs to celebrate seasons, bring groups together, offer thanks, muster courage, and make room for healing and grieving. Sarina has a passion for connecting people with their own creativity and with community, and uses harmony singing as a modality to help folks develop a sense of wonder and belonging in this wild world. Songs will be taught by ear and all voices are welcome and needed - Come sing!
Annie Schlaefer
Annie Schlaefer has been collecting songs and leading song circles for 10 years in many different communities (in Northern Minnesota, Maine, and Madison, Wisconsin) and now co-facilitates a weekly local community song circle, “Sing As You Are,” in Minneapolis. She learned about this style of singing in 2012 in Decorah, Iowa from a local song-leader, Liz Rog. When she isn’t singing, you can find Annie gardening and exploring the outdoors. Annie currently works as a speech therapist in St. Paul Public Schools.
Linnea Champ
Linnea Champ co-facilitates a weekly local community song circle, “Sing As You Are”, in Minneapolis, and was introduced to this style of singing in 2015. Linnea works in public health, and enjoys running, biking, and playing the piano.
Liz Rog
Liz Rog believes in singing together as an ancient technology for belonging, a simple and powerful tool for restoring our connection in community. She sings with all ages, teaching simple songs that can be woven into the seasons of the year and the changes and challenges of our lives in play, at bedsides, at rallies and in rituals. Liz delights in helping folks rediscover their ancestral birthright of group singing to nurture collective joy, courage and healing and supports songleading leadership practices to nurture our collective unfolding. In 2021, with friends and family Liz helped to create the Center for Belonging Folk School where people of all ages are welcomed to share stories, songs, food, handcraft, laughter and tears, all nested in a beautiful gazebo in a pristine wooded hollow near Decorah, Iowa.
Barbara McAfee
Barbara is a "midwife for voices." For many decades she has been a community song leader and voice coach, supporting people in finding the joy of full expression. She is author of Full Voice: The Art and Practice of Vocal Presence and founder/director of The Morning Star Singers, a comfort choir based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A native Minnesotan, she now resides in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin along the wild and scenic St. Croix River.
Lyndsey Scott
Lyndsey Scott enjoys living life as multimedia prayer. Educated as a painter, she spent a decade in St. Louis, MO experimenting with parades, photography, and participatory art as catalyst for community transformation. Encountering personal and collective trauma initiated a decade of inquiry into healing modalities, which led to a move back to her rural hometown in central IL. There she seeded restorative practices, including opening a small yoga studio, facilitating a permaculture garden for formerly incarcerated men, prioritizing mending with her family of origin, and teaching art at a juvenile detention center. Now she weaves creativity & healing together in ritual and song, by offering community song circles, ecstatic grief ritual, and group work aimed at dismantling internalized white supremacy and patriarchy. She is currently traveling and weaving song circles at intentional communities and earth churches, sharing mantra from her album Well Held and prayer for abolition, Over/Under.
