Vermont/SIT trip and Video from the road

As you may have read in my last post, I hit the road for 24 hours to Brattleboro,Vermont where I visited the School for International Training (SIT) for the Governor's Institute on Current Issues & Youth Activism. I set out with family, tons of music and snacks and a bucket full of chocolate covered espresso beans. The drive in was grueling but that early morning mist over the high roads and mountain tops were well worth driving the last shift. Nature really is the rawest form of inspiration.

Between hikes, mountain top meals, campfires, random antique import yard sailing, riverside bbqing, going to an excellent farmers market and swimming in an incredible dam surrounded by lush mountains, I facilitated a workshop on collaboration and art with meaning. I had a group of almost 50 students and there was just a whirlwind of ideas swirling through the space. In two hours every group conceived, wrote and performed a complete performance, to which every participant contributed. A lot of these folks haven't even written a line of poetry much less performed in front of a group of their peers. I hope this set some sparks for kids that they'll use to light torches they carry with them from here on out.

I also performed a set for the whole camp and their facilitators and masterminds of this top notch youth training experience. Let me just say that this crowd was absolutely incredible. This group was making up dances based on movements of my delivery and sang along with songs they didn't even know. This group was open to some mind blowing hip hop and I gotta say, I obliged. I'm not real into tooting my own horn as it were, but I am into being real about what I have to offer and the special thing here was a moment in time with a group of smart students from all over the east coast as well as Germany and Turkey. There was true magic between crowd and artist that night...before I go on and on about it, I'll just stop there.
I had hoped to get a bunch of video on this trip but since my backpack of supplies carrying my camera (as well a slew of other artist necessities) was left behind at our stop in Indiana, I wasn't able to document it in the way I had hoped. However, as I did recover my supplies on the way back, I did have my camera for the last leg of the trip from Indiana through Chicago back to the Twin Cities...so I recorded this video below. It felt appropriate. Enjoy.