To follow up 9/9’s Co-Creation event, we dove into the Collective Oneness of 10/10 at Those Who Dance in Lisbon on October 10. What a night. what a lineup. It felt like the start of something.
The evening opened with a merging of what were initially meant to be two separate workshops: a contact improv dance workshop led by Jo, and a vocal activation/choir workshop by Sara. With a theme of Oneness, it didn’t make sense to immediately split everyone up into two workshops.
So Jo started and led us all through some beautiful techniques for connection, presence and movement that, put together, form the basis for contact improv. After some time, Sara started adding in music and instrumentation. She then took the lead and very quickly had everyone making noises, first alone, then in pairs, then groups, then weaving the groups together. It was wild, rowdy, tribal, vulnerable, empowering.
At 10:10pm we shifted into a standing/sitting meditation. Farhad and Catarina guided us through Everywhere’s frequencies in the context of the body’s energetic centers/chakras.
We then moved into music. As with 9/9, it took a little while for people to transition from workshops to party, but Conrad/Wamanzi got everyone there, and then Boom Festival legends Zen Baboon followed. It was the closest I’ve felt to the energy of The Gardens stage at Boom. If that's something that can be reproduced outside of Boom, it should be (and we will try building it out as a regular night at TWD on October 29).
After Zen Baboon, there was still a buzz going, so Conrad picked it up again and we ended up extending the evening until 4am.
So how did we do? As with 9/9, I’ve done a review of how we did in amplifying the frequencies:
Sharing - once again the event was fully gifted/shared. It seemed like people brought more to share with others as well this time: drinks, snacks, energy. We hoped that people would also pay it forward monetarily in the form of contributions to twofundraisers. We received a few contributions after, but not enough. Think the main difficulty there was in getting the links to people, at a time when they are happy to give. 6/10
Co-Creation - since it was our second rodeo in terms of creating the night, the posters, the space… more people were involved and at a deeper level. Farhad coordinated a flow/awareness team and owned the meditation portion. Roya helped remotely create the altar with Petra. Many volunteers helped to set up the space and make it beautiful and warm. And maybe my favorite part was Jo and Sara meeting (for the first time just before the event started) and very quickly adapting and merging their workshops into one flowing experience. 9/10
Conscious Trace - by putting all bins in two spaces, one in each room, we did better here. Not much at all for the cleaners to do afterwards, but I’m not sure we split up the recycling very well. 6/10
Transformation - we once again transformed Those Who Dance, and I think some people definitely had transformational moments during the workshops… but there’s only so far you can take it/move people in a couple of hours. 5/10
Collective Oneness - we adjusted last minute to keep everyone together and in one flow by merging the workshops. Contact improv and choir definitely united us, as did the meditation. I don’t think we achieved 10/10 on 10/10, because other events in the city and around the world were not connected, but we certainly showed intent. 8/10
Nowness - the workshops (and the fact it was a Friday rather than a Tuesday) really helped people drop into presence quickly. Phones stayed out of sight. People stayed at the venue and rested, napped, hung out at the two wonderful tea stations run by Jade and Moritz rather than leaving. 8/10
Self-Reliance - For the second time I can’t really think of examples of tuning into this frequency over the course of the night; not much in the way of survival skill or innovation is needed to join an event in Marvila. 5/10
Awareness - Farhad’s flow/awareness team greeted and initiated people at the door, teaching them about the Frequencies and guiding them through some practical ways these play out in events. 9/10
Equity - I hope the more people are feeling a part of these, and with Everywhere, with each event. But it’s still quite top-down/centralized. 4/10
Renegade Spirit - We ordered legal shroom gummies from Berlin and handed them out, so trickster was on the scene. 8/10
On 11/11, we’ll go again. And this time we’ll go renegade.
