By the time I graduated college, I knew I had to pursue singing as a career. I literally went into counseling to help build the confidence I needed to do that and to be a solo performer. In October 1992, while I was studying singing and performing in operas in New York, I went to the Clearwater Pumpkin Festival, and joined Clearwater, not realizing what exactly I was joining. As time went on, and I learned more and more about the environment and about the organization, I got more involved in environmental education and I started singing at Clearwater events.
I was singing at the New York City Water Festival in Battery Park and Pete was there. As I came off the stage, he said it was good to see and hear me again. Wow!!! After that, there were a few instances where Pete invited me to perform with him - a couple of benefit concerts and a school show, after which he forwarded me the "Thank You" letters the kids had sent him, noting that many of the kids really liked my "Food Chain" song.
I feel very privileged to have been able to perform with Pete and to watch closely how he communicates with his audiences. He has a great gift for talking to a crowd as if he were just talking calmly to one or two people in his living room.
Sharon acting up with Mike Hurwicz
My partner, Mike Hurwicz, and I started our tax-exempt nonprofit, Irthlingz Arts-Based Environmental Education, in 2002. Irthlingz mission is to entertain while engaging, educating, inspiring and empowering people to become active stewards of the Earth. There is a lot of good information "out there", but we need a more heart-centered approach to change in our society and in our world, that takes into account what's happening inside us on a spiritual level. Irthlingz seeks to merge these, believing that the imbalance we're seeing in our environment is related to an imbalance in our lives.
We started doing environmental education with music together in 1998. In 2001, I was invited to apply for a grant from The Celebration Foundation of Portland, Oregon. That grant came through in early 2002 and that was the first funding that Irthlingz received.
Mike and I wanted a way that we could self-fund our EE shows, so we could do performances and supply materials to schools and organizations that couldn't afford to pay for our services. We've been able to do some wonderful projects and get some of our favorite inspiring music out to the public through Irthlingz.
In 2002, with our first grant, we produced and recorded a CD called Seeking Sanctuary, to help reconnect people with the planet and with ourselves. Also in 2002, that grant helped fund our trip to South Africa to do music for the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development. And in 2002, we premiered our first climate change musical show, The Great Climate Caper. The performers were 6th and 7th grade students in our local community. The students received certificates for their permanent academic record stating that they had performed this show as a community service.
In 2006 and 2007, we worked with students from the High School for Environmental Studies in New York. In 2006, the students performed songs from our climate change musical revue, Penguins on Thin Ice, at the United Nations for the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development [Click here to listen to "Penguins on Thin Ice."] And in 2007, the students performed the complete show as an official side event at the UN-CSD. The students received a standing ovation from the international audience. People really appreciated the students' performance and the songs, and many expressed the desire for more arts-based, heart-centered communication at the U.N.
Our two new projects are both related to climate change, which, of course, is related to everything - water, food, health, economy, etc. The Climate Monologues is a one-woman musical show about climate change. The Meltese Dodo is a take-off on The Maltese Falcon. It uses the basic plot of this famous story as a framework for telling the history of climate science, which in itself is quite amazing.
[You can check these out at www.irthlingz.org and at www.ClimateMonologues.com.]
The Climate Monologues premiered in May of this year. I'll be performing about a third of the show in a presentation for the North American Association of Environmental Educators conference in Buffalo, New York in late September. Performances are being planned in Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington State. I plan to put the whole show up online so that it can be accessed by anyone in the hope that community discussion and action groups will develop in communities across the U.S.
We don't want to beat people over the head with how terrible things are. We want to inspire people through understanding and the win-win process of taking care of our planet and our atmosphere.
Anything you'd like to add, before we wrap it up?
I'd like to add that my partner Mike Hurwicz wrote the script and screenplay for The Meltese Dodo. He also did all the research into climate science for this production. He's got a Care2 petition that people can sign onto encouraging George Clooney to do the lead role.
For The Climate Monologues, I found the people to interview, conducted the interviews, edited the interviews to work as monologues, and wrote the songs to accompany the monologues. Many thanks again, Joan! (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
