Arts Events
In 1964, Joan Baez led a workshop entitled "The New Folk Music" which included a free performance. This was the first of seven “Big Sur Folk Festivals” featuring many of the era's music legends. The 1969 concert included musicians who had just come from the Woodstock Festival. This event was featured in a documentary movie, Celebration at Big Sur, which was released in 1971.
Performers at Esalen have included:
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John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg performed together at Esalen. Robert Bly, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Kenneth Rexroth (who led one of the first workshops), Gary Snyder and others held poetry readings and workshops.
In 1994, President and CEO Sharon Thom created an Artist-in-Residence program to provide artists with a two-week retreat in which to focus upon works in progress. These artists interacted with the staff, offered informal gatherings, and staged performances on the newly created dance platform. Located next to the Art Barn, the dance platform was used by Esalen teachers for dance and martial arts. Later, the platform was covered by a dome, and renamed the Leonard Pavilion after deceased Esalen past president and board member, George Leonard.
In 1995 and 1996, Esalen hosted two Arts Festivals, which gathered together artists, poets, musicians, photographers and performers, including artist Margot McLean, psychologist James Hillman, guitarist Michael Hedges and Joan Baez. All staff members were allowed to attend every class and performance that did not interfere with their schedules. Arts festivals have since become a popular yearly event at Esalen.
Read more about this topic: Esalen Institute
Famous quotes containing the words arts and/or events:
“What ails it, intrinsically, is a dearth of intellectual audacity and of aesthetic passion. Running through it, and characterizing the work of almost every man and woman producing it, there is an unescapable suggestion of the old Puritan suspicion of the fine arts as such—of the doctrine that they offer fit asylum for good citizens only when some ulterior and superior purpose is carried into them.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)