2008-08-28

Music, people and nature together

BY JEFF SISTRUNK

For the Herald

FRANKFORD -- David Bryson is looking forward to the future.

"What we're experiencing right now is a unique shift in consciousness where people are finally recognizing how precious and sacred life is," said Bryson, of Stillwater. "With so many people committed to preserving the planet, we have a broad window of opportunity in the coming years to determine how we'll shape our future."

Bryson is the creative director of Evolve 2012, also known as Evolvefest, a three-day music and arts festival that is billed as a "consciousness-raising celebration of the creative human spirit."

The event is scheduled for Sept. 5-7 at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta and will feature 60 bands on three stages, including regionally famous acts like Natural Breakdown, Juggling Suns, Awry and Roy Hobbs Agenda. Evolvefest will also feature art exhibits, yoga sessions, massage booths, organic and vegan food vendors and screenings of the Disinformation Company's new documentary "2012: Science or Superstition?" Accommodations for camping will be available the first two nights.

Evolvefest is sponsored by Evolving Together Inc., a non-profit organization that Bryson described as a "collective dedicated to organizing and facilitating large-scale events to educate people about environmental issues."

The first Evolve 2012 festival, a two-day event held last September at the Kids Camp off Route 94 in Frelinghuysen, grew out of a weekly pot luck dinner that friends of Bryson hosted for local artists and educators.

"(At the dinners), we had talked about doing a musical event to reach out to the community," Bryson said. "After we identified a good venue to host a show, I got in touch with musicians from around the area to play."

Although the inaugural event started out as a small effort to raise money for the Kids Camp's programs and campgrounds, Bryson said that "within a month it outgrew our original expectations." Ultimately, about 1,000 people attended.

Due to the tremendous response to the first festival, Bryson recognized the need to move to a location that could accommodate more people, and the Sussex County Fairgrounds was a natural choice, he said.

"It's great to have such a perfect, spacious venue right in our backyard," Bryson said. "The people at the fairgrounds have been extremely accommodating."

Bryson said that he hopes Evolvefest will become an annual event counting down to the year 2012 because "a lot of important dates converge on that year."

Bryson cited many texts and theories, most of them drawing on Mayan prophecies, that suggest that 2012 will signal a planetary awakening or golden age of enlightenment, not the end of the world.

"It's like the rounding up of a grand cosmic cycle," he said.

The festival's primary goal is to provide a rallying point to promote conversation about environmental preservation and green technology, Bryson said.

"We're trying to reach out to people who want to imbue the Earth with new beauty," he said.

Jordan Sims, keyboardist for Roy Hobbs Agenda, expressed his desire for the festival to draw attention to the plight of the planet.

"People need to understand that this Earth is not going to be around in this way if we keep trashing it," he said. "The (organizers) and artists all want to try to keep Mother Earth beautiful. It's a global cause -- we're simply trying to keep the planet in one piece."

Bryson said that, in the spirit of environmental awareness, a portion of the funds raised from ticket sales will be donated toward the purchase of solar panels to power a solar stage that can be used at the fairgrounds throughout the year. Fairgrounds Director Bob Silk said that such a stage is still hypothetical but that it is a possibility.

The diverse lineup of bands will serve a much higher purpose than simple entertainment, as music is the perfect tool to unite people and elevate consciousness, Bryson said.

"In music, especially improvisational music, there's an implicit act of surrender," he said. "(Music is) this great, universally understood expression of life energy. When a large group of people simultaneously surrenders to the flow of music, their sense of connectedness is enhanced."

Evolvefest gives local musicians a chance to network with each other and with fans, said Seth Fleishman, singer/guitarist for the band Awry.

"(The festival) brings together all of the best bands in the area," Fleishman said. "Festivals are fantastic because of all the people you get to meet, and they're also a great time to hang with other artists. All the Northern Jersey bands try to keep that sense of community and help each other out."

Sims echoed that sentiment.

"I performed at last year's festival in the Breadbox Band, and the people were just fantastic," Sims said. "Everyone just shares in the love of music and all these worthy causes. A lot of these bands are friends of ours, and we don't get to hang out often, but when we do it's dynamic."

Sims said he was looking forward to sets from Juggling Suns, Echofission and Kings in Disguise, all of whom he praised as "tremendous musicians."

Another advantage of festivals is that people can connect on the most basic level, without the aid of technology or the restraints of society, Bryson said.

"At festivals, you're not having your world prescribed to you," he said. "Society generally inhibits displays of affection and love, even things like generosity. In the fairgrounds, we have a unique, experimental venue where people can test the limits of their own humanity. We are giving people the opportunity to gift others with their own person and pursue excellence towards others just for the sake of it."

Bryson said that, based on current demand, Evolvefest could outgrow the 30,000-person capacity allowed by the fairgrounds by 2010.

"Growth of the festival would be positive evidence of more people coming onboard for this shift in consciousness," he said.

Bryson's long-term aspiration is for Evolving Together Inc., to become eligible for the Club of Budapest's Planetary Consciousness Prize and Best Practice Award by 2012. The Planetary Consciousness Prize is awarded to an organization that "is most effective in exhibiting and promoting the universally required new consciousness of the planet," while the Best Practice Award is bestowed on an organization that promotes "socially and ecologically sustainable global development in a particularly innovative, exemplary and integral way."

"We really want to get people to think in whole new ways about expressing their energies while respecting life," Bryson said. "It's great that we can have an event like this in this region. We're all about Sussex County's motto: 'people and nature together.'"