Building & Closing the Containerwith Jason Cohen
Jason will be leading the creation of the fire circle and the digging of the root fire.
Participants are all welcome to learn how and be part of the ritual creation and closing. Some of the creation takes place on Wednesday and the rest of Thursday, so come early if you are feeling called to be a part of it. Elemental Altars, an Ancestor Altar and sometimes other altars are co-created. Break down and the closing of the space happens on Sunday. Please bring items for the altars, offerings of herbs, incense and song.
Jason “Many Hats” Cohen is the producer and lead wizard/rattle shaker of the ceremonial fire circle gatherings known as Forestdance, the 41st of which is happening June 12th-16th, 2024. He is the Executive Director of the HeARTbeat Collective Inc, and has produced and held musical space for 100’s of healing and expressive arts rituals around the world. He has a deep knowledge and level of experience, with sensitivity and training as a ritual facilitator, and has walked and danced with a lifelong pursuit of making music that connects people with nature, mysticism and one another around the fire. Jason was one of the founders and chaired the Board of Managers of Camp Timber Trails, LLC, until he became the Camp Coordinator.
Jason’s latest efforts is as the Director for the historic Montague Retreat Center, a gorgeous 34 acre venue with a geo-thermal Great Hall and a deep and fantastic progressive legacy.
Jason is a community organizer deeply committed to creating spaces where people can become empowered and inspired. He is a musician, composer and songwriter and sings and plays keys, accordion and percussion with his project Incus.
Jason is a proud and loving father, and takes much of his inspiration from his humble and direct connections to nature and his ancestors.
Ritual Support & Integration for the Forest Circlewith Luke & Alexa
With a combined 15 years of dancing around the fire at Forestdance, Luke DeStefano and Alexa Iya Soro bring grounded, heart-led support to those stepping into this tradition—whether for the first or tenth time. They are here to support participants in navigating the intensity and beauty of these three night long ceremonies: where the music, drumming, rattles, and chanting awaken wild joy, clear old burdens, and reconnect us to the land, our ancestors, and what we are truly capable of.
As longtime ritualists and integration guides, Luke and Alexa help weave the fire’s teachings into your body and life. They offer practical tools and culturally sensitive frameworks for preparing, moving through, and integrating the peak states and rites of passage that emerge directly from the forest. Their work, involving both plant medicine transformation and pure practices of consciousness without imbibing medicine, is rooted in the understanding that without integration, peak experiences risk becoming distant memories—instead of foundations for real transformation.
Luke is an Integrative Health Practitioner and ceremonial musician with over 20 years of experience in sacred spaceholding devoted to prinicples of Tibetan Buddhism and subtle energy body Qigong practices. Alexa is a transpersonal psychotherapist, psychedelic integration guide, and grief ritualist trained in Internal Family Systems, ancestral healing, and myth-informed trauma work.
Together, they stand for honoring ritual beyond blood lineage—holding space for elemental reverence that transcends time, and for remembering, as one Forestdancer said,
“The energy weaves through us and then to everything around us, until the ceremony dissolves and we all remember the subtle and truest parts of ourselves.”
They are here to support our community landing—so that the fire becomes more than a memory but reinstallation of spirit, and the dance becomes a living prayer that ripples out of our circle and beyond into the lives of our families and communities, and beyond.
Music and Service around the Firewith Ult Mundane
Ult Mundane invites us to explore principles of drumming together, to help us bring confidence and sensitivity to our service at the sacred fire. Ult loves to blend the high energy of traditional African rhythms with the dynamic conversational elements of group improvisation. We will experiment with adding our voices to the group in the spirit of service. Together we can deepen our ability to support establishing a rhythm, use call and response to hear and be heard, and add some fireworks when the energy is on its way up.
Ult has been studying traditional West African drumming for over fifteen years, playing djembe and dunduns. He has learned from world-renowned teachers such as Famoudou Konate and Mamady Keita. Since 2010 he has been studying with Namory Keita, a master drummer from Guinea. Ult currently teaches a weekly class where he lives in Southern New Hampshire and leads the drumming for a dance class in Keene, NH. Ult is the president of the HeARTbeat Collective, Inc., a non-profit art and cultural organization.
Introduction to Qi Gungwith Billy Woods
The exercises are simple and easy to follow along and are practiced to acquaint the participant with these two air forms. Some movement and a seat meditation are included.
Billy Woods has been a professional drummer since 1958, performing across the United States. In 1980, he discovered the dumbek and the rhythms of the Middle East. He has had the privilege of playing on stage with many wonderful musicians.In the 30 years he has been teaching, many of his students have gone on to excel in their own right. A celebration of drums, Seeds of Time formed in 1997 with Billy Woods, Daveed Korup, and later Josh Levin. He has received national recognition including several awards for his contributions to the quality of drumming within the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. and is known as Master Sylvanus the Drummer.
Billy began studying the teachings of Grand Master Share K. Lew (called the Dao Dan Pai or Daoist Elixir Style) of San Diego. GRAND-MASTER LEW studied 14 years as a resident monk at Wong Lung Gaun ( yellow dragon temple ) on Mt Luo Fa in Canton China In1980. He began his studies with Sufi Dr. Thomas McCombs, Billy’s teacher and school brother. He traveled to China with grandmaster Lew in 1986 and in 1989 to study. He has been teaching workshops since 1985. In 2011 he became Wandering Abbot of Spirit Gate Temple ( Shen-men Gaun). Qi Gung (Chi Kung) practice was developed in China over a period of centuries to increase one’s level of internal vitality through use of breath’ slow movement forms which are often based on the movements of nature or on animal movements, and visualizations patterns related to the oriental system of energy meridians in the body. Regular practice of the forms improves health by strengthening and cleansing on many levels.
Billy Woods retired as Head of Technical Services from the University of Colorado, where he spent 25 years in the Department of Electrical Engineering, receiving awards for his outstanding service. Billy is also a father, grand-father, and, great grand-father.
West African Dancewith Tara Murphy
Beginning/Open Level, with LIVE drumming!
For millennia, dance and drumming in Africa have brought people together to create peace and happiness. Let us also find joy with dancing and drumming, relieving stress and connecting with ourselves and community. Tara Murphy teaches basic West African movement styles, as well as traditional dances from Guinea and Mali, West Africa. This dance will get your blood pumping and your heart soaring….feel the rhythms and shake what you got! The class emphasizes community, self-expression and the joy of movement.
Tara will be accompanied by many of our drummers, including Chris Keniley, a soulful drummer who has played for countless African dance classes, performances and devotional kirtans and satsangs in the area. Chris has been studying and performing West African drumming for the last 20 years, learning with master drummers Issa Coulibaly, Moussa Traore and Sory Diabate of Mali, West Africa.
Attire: Comfortable clothes, participants may wear cloth around their waist. Please bring water.
Biography:
Originally from Washington, D.C., Tara earned her B.A. in theater and religious studies at Yale University. At this time Tara began exploring her heritage through African studies at Yale, and was awarded a fellowship to study traditional dance and drumming at the University of Legon in Ghana, West Africa. For the past 25 years, she has studied with many African and Afro-Caribbean artists in Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston. Her primary mentors have been Issa Coulibaly and Joh Camara of Mali; Youssouf Koumbassa of Guinea; Fatou N’Diaye and Astou Sagna of Senegal; and Jean Appolon of Haiti. In addition to African dance, Tara has also practiced yoga and meditation since she was a child. Tara recognizes the practice of African dance and drumming as a tremendous force for healing, meditation, empowerment and community. It is her greatest honor to share the inspiration of these ancient traditions.
Holding Space in the Welcoming Portal and for the Dancewith Loudingirra Özdemir
Loudingirra Özdemir is a Turkish troubadour, storyteller, and folk musician carrying the ancient spirit of the âşık tradition into a global journey. With his long-necked saz in hand and heart open to the world, he has been traveling across continents for the past nine years, collecting songs, stories, and human connection.
His ongoing project, In 100 Countries, 100 Songs, is a living archive of collaboration—uniting traditional Anatolian music with local musicians from each land he visits. Blending Turkish folk roots with improvisation, spoken word, and local languages, Loudingirra creates deeply moving pieces that honor both cultural heritage and spontaneous expression.
Loudingirra is not only a musician, but a traveling artist who builds bridges between cultures through direct connection with local people. In each country he visits, he enriches his music with local languages, stories, and the unique spirit of the moment. His work aims to bring together the shared emotions and lived experiences of people from different parts of the world.
Root Fire and Foraging Expeditionswith Gina Shvartsman
Gina is an Earth lover, often dappled in dirt or plant matter. She finds joy in the depth of connection offered to us through radical relationality with one another, our more-than-human kin, and this beautiful planet we call home. Guided by the seasonal rhythms and the breath and pulse of the Earth, Gina is inspired to be part of the re-membering of our human animal ways and that we are nature. She is a farmer homesteader, community herbalist, shiatsu bodyworker, songstress, wild crafter and the culinary and herbal-artist of Radical Rose Botanicals. Her lifeways prioritize reclaiming our agency and vitality by being in direct connection with that which nourishes and provides our basic needs to feel met, and opening our eyes to the abundance all around us and within us.
This will be her first year tending the Root Fire, which she wishes to hold as a place where all the elements—earth, fire, water, and air—come together to bring us back into our selves and connect us with place. The place where our body and the land meet. A place to ground and root. And to remember that we can access all we need at any moment, that we have all we need within us, we simply must open ourselves up to it and receive.
She will also be leading us on foraging expeditions for all who would like to join.
Sema (Sufi Practices)with Omar Aena
Sema is a tradition rooted in Sufism that combines devotional chanting, live music, and whirling meditation. It was founded by the 13th-century mystic Rumi, whose poetry speaks of love, longing, and union with the Divine. Through the spinning movement and the power of sound, the ego dissolves, and the tangible world fades away, revealing the deep peace that has always been within.
Whether you come to whirl, chant, or simply sit in stillness and listen, you are welcome. No prior experience is needed, just an open heart.
Join us in this sacred night of sound, movement, and remembrance.
Nourishment Mama: Andi Blinn
Andi, affectionately known as The Nourishment Mama, is an intentional chef holding nourishment space for a number of conscious gatherings, festivals and retreats. She brings a full circle of reciprocity to her food offerings, sourcing organically grown and foraged ingredients, with a focus on food as a supportive medicine to the energetics and flow of the containers she supports. She is so very excited to welcome everyone to her nourishing hearth!
Registrar: Nick Mikita
Nick first attended Forestdance in the wake of a beautiful experience with the HeARTbeat Collective’s Unifier Festival. The intimate, intentional, ceremonial character of Forestdance inspired Nick to volunteer for the organization, and eventually join the HBC Board of Directors. This will be Nick’s third Forestdance serving as Registrar, and he is honored by the opportunity to welcome and accommodate all who join us.