Proposals

The Git Up is a country hip-hop song written in 2019 by Blanco Brown, with an accompanying line dance (see video here). Line dances are great because you can dance them equally well alone in your living room or with your housemates or six feet apart at a physcially distanced picnic. The Git Up is silly and fun and extremely catchy; it's got basic steps you can follow or you can improvise to your heart's content. We'll learn the basic dance together, piece by piece. By the end of the workshop I hope you'll have some new dance moves, a new song stuck in your head, and a smile on your face. 

Want to turn your backyard into your pantry? I've been organic gardening for over 40 years -- in the country, but also in 3 city backyards. You can grow a lot of food in a small space! I was able to grow most of my veggies, fruits and herbs in my 3 city backyards. Come with specific questions about your space, and I'll be happy to answer them to get you started.

Have you ever wondered what the scrubby little plant growing through a crack in the sidewalk is? Now's your chance to find out. Grab your headphones, a notebook, and some chalk, and follow me out into our (own respective) neighborhood(s)! As we go, everyone will have the opportunity to share close-ups of weeds they're curious about, and I will help to identify them. If you are feeling bold, join me in being a rogue botanist and label your plants with chalk for all your neighbors to see.I do realize this will only work for those who have smartphones, data, and cell towers in their area, so for anyone who wants to take pictures of neighborhood plants ahead of time, I'll make sure to include a time to look at those as well. This can be a two-stage workshop, or we can simply adjust as needed.

I've been thinking a lot about what it looks like to be a fulfilled and happy person during the pandemic. I think it's unrealistic to just sit around and wait for "the world to return to normal." Instead, I want to figure out how to build a new world that is safe, social, and sustainable regardless of whether there's a pandemic happening. This workshop will take the form of a group brainstorm about what we all need to be happy people who aren't going stircrazy, and how to get some version of those things while social distancing. It will look at how we might re-design social and recreational activities like dancing, travel, potlucks, and dating to be both satisfying and safe. It will also explore how to reframe our thinking about the activities which are still available to us during social distancing to make them more satisfying. My personal goal is to get some great brains together to think about how to design safe spaces for dancing outside this summer (an outdoor dance floor in a community space big enough for dancers to stay distant from each other? Workshops in shadow waltzes? An upswing in solo blues dance?) I also want to think about how we might handle social activities this winter (if we need to carry on isolation at that time) without freezing our bums off outside!**note: I would also be glad to hold this workshop as an outside-but-in-person workshop with a small group in the Burlington VT area, if anyone is interested!**