FFM members participate in the Concert across America to End Gun Violence

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On Sunday evening, September 25, some of the members of the Family Folk Machine will join other community singers to present the Iowa City iteration of the Concert across America to End Gun Violence. The concert is at 6:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall at Trinity Episcopal Church, 320 E. College Street. It’s designed to be a bit under an hour long and entirely kid-friendly.

Something special happens when we take our FFM songs out and sing them at community events. The songs are meaningful when we sing them as part of a concert program. But singing them at an event with a specific purpose gives them extra meaning. Sometimes it’s very simple: it’s fun to sing about vegetables when you’re standing across from a Farmers’ Market stand full of September bounty. Last night at our rehearsal, I could tell that for me at least it was very powerful to bring some of these songs we already knew into a context where the focus is on supporting victims of gun violence and people in cities that have been ripped apart by gun violence. The songs Avila and We’ve Been Down this Road Before always come to my mind when I hear about unrest in our cities. Last night Wash my Eyes seemed particularly beautiful in this context; not just in asking forgiveness for our complicity with a violence-crazed society, forgiveness so that we can enjoy simple joys like the return of spring and our children sleeping in peace, but perhaps also washing our eyes and our ears through which we consume with fascination and horror the stream of alarming reports about violence without knowing how to integrate this knowledge into our lives in a way that keeps us whole and healthy.

It’s my understanding that more than 350 concerts are being performed on September 25 as part of this nationwide event. It will be good to think of so many people on the same day turning their thoughts to peace and to working together to curb gun violence. At our Iowa City event, representatives of the local chapter of Moms Demand Action will have information about how communities can work to prevent gun violence.

Here’s the link to the Facebook event for our concert: Concert Across America to End Gun Violence. It is free and open to the public.

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Story Circle Sunday, September 25

This column ran in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

The public is invited to participate in an afternoon of Story Circles with the Family Folk Machine on Sunday, September 25, at 3:00 p.m. at the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center. The story circles are part of the Folk Machine’s 2016–17 project, Wasn’t That a Time?, supported by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council.

The story circle is a technique for gathering stories, themes, and ideas from a group. In 2014, the Iowa City band The Awful Purdies held story circles with farmers, food workers, and other community members to learn about people’s experiences with food. They took the stories they gathered and created songs for the musical play “All Recipes Are Home,” which they performed with Working Group Theatre. A few weeks ago, the Awful Purdies did a performance presentation for the Family Folk Machine to share their experiences with story circles to help us prepare to lead some of our own.

Our purpose in gathering community stories is to use them as seeds for songwriting. In January and February, as part of the Wasn’t That a Time? project, the Awful Purdies will lead a series of songwriting workshops with the FFM. Listening to stories from our friends and neighbors will give us material to work with when we begin the songwriting process.
On September 25, we will do a little writing and a little sharing in our story circles. Some of our questions and prompts will be asking about life experiences, positive and negative, that have directed our paths. Some of our questions have to do with the role of music in our lives. The event is free and open to the public of all ages (kids most definitely included). After our time of story circle sharing, we’ll linger over refreshments.

Aside from the socially oriented story circles, we will also be gathering stories in written form. This fall, we plan to use boxes stationed around the Senior Center where people can submit written stories or answers to some of our questions. Soon we will have a website for Wasn’t That a Time? with a process for submitting typed stories and ideas. We will be transcribing some of the story circle results for publication on our website along with some of the written responses we receive.

We’re dreaming of writing songs in January and February, but at the same time the Family Folk Machine is working up a fun program of songs for our concerts this fall. We’ll perform “Rise Up and Sing! A Celebration of Community Singing” on November 13, 3 p.m. at the Senior Center, and on November 20, 3 p.m. in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol. Our program this fall features songs from the new group-singing book, “Rise Again,” a follow-up to the classic “Rise Up Singing.” We’re working on a nice variety of songs, from Sesame Street to Emmylou Harris to Harry Belafonte to Jean Ritchie. Save the dates!

For more information about the Family Folk Machine or Wasn’t That a Time?, please send an e-mail to jean@familyfolkmachine.org.

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