[ShareTompkins] Everyone Welcome: kick-off party Aug 5 for Six Mile Creek arts/watershed initiative

[Patricia Haines]

Thanks for passing this along to friends - all ages welcome:

July 20, 2011



*CELEBRATE SIX MILE CREEK!*

*Campus/Community Event Kicks-Off Arts-Based Watershed Initiative*





Gallery Night on Friday, August 5th will feature a gala of music, dance,
photography, art and water fun from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. on the downtown Creek
Walk, behind the Tompkins County Library.



The event kicks off *A Year in the Life of Six Mile Creek*, a multi-year
watershed initiative calling on the arts to invite folks of all ages to join
together to protect Cayuga Lake's waters for years to come.



The occasion will introduce Creek Walk banners of native plant images from
photographer Nancy Ridenour.  Sora Jerderan Shpack, winner of Carnegie
Mellon University's prestigious Composer's Competition, will premiere *Songs
of Many Waters*, a multi-movement work portraying the beauty, grandeur and
wonder of our world’s water systems. The work will be performed by Octavivo
– The New Violin Family - with vocalists and musicians from Ithaca.



Mermaids and water fairies of all costumed ages are welcome to join Zajal
the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Troupe as they premiere a new Mermaid Dance in
honor of the Six Mile Creek project.



Creek enthusiasts are invited to contribute photographs and paintings for a
slide and video show and exhibit featuring works by the Cayuga Nature
Photographers, stone sculptor Rob Kauffman , former Cousteau filmmaker and
Ithaca native David O.Brown and pleine aire artist Nari Mistry.



Photographs should be sent to
<sixmilewatershed at gmail.com<6milewatershed at gmail.com>>;
art works and sculpture should be brought to the Creek Walk by 4 p.m on
August 5th.



*Sponsors*

Launched with 'seed' funds from the Park Foundation, *A Year in the Life of
Six Mile Creek* is spearheaded by the Level Green Institute and Cayuga Lake
Watershed Network. Activities are co-hosted with members of the new Creek
Coalition, a growing group of artists working with City, campus and
community groups to create family-fun activities that celebrate – and
document - life in, under and around the Creek through a full round of
seasons.



Coalition membership is open to individuals, businesses and groups sharing
its commitment to engaging the community in learning about and getting on
board the importance of protecting the water so critical for our collective
future.



*Future Activities*

A calendar of August 2011 - July 2012 Creekside activities can be found at *
<**sixmilecreek.wordsmith.com**>* and on Facebook, at *A Year in the Life of
Six Mile Creek*.



One highlight of upcoming August 2011 offerings is an open Headwaters
Expedition, August 19-21. Everyone is invited to explore the Creek's meander
from the Inlet to Dryden's Hammond Hill State Forest, with music and picnics
along the way.



Everyone is also invited to join in photography, history, geology and native
plant walks; waterfall music, dancing, drumming, improv theatre and singing;
Creekside massage and healing arts; pleine aire painting; natural stone
sculpture; poetry and writing workshops; a Lifelong seminar on “Flow” with
Wally Woods; and working with David Brown to video-document the Project to
share online.



Starting in September, volunteers are welcome to work with Ithaca College
faculty and students and the History Center to research and creating public
programming for a Haudenosaunee Winter Village located in the Creek gorge
nearby downtown.



*Context*

Known historically to the Haudenosaunee as Teegastoweas, Six Mile Creek is
one of Cayuga Lake's most important tributaries. In addition to supplying
the City of Ithaca's drinking water, it touches the lives of diverse
thousands of people as it wends from the Dryden hills down through
Slaterville and Brooktondale, through the Six Mile Creek nature preserve,
past the downtown business district, and and through the Parkside and
Northside neighborhoods before joining the Inlet.



The Creek also speaks for the many other streams that feed Cayuga Lake; and
the lakes and rivers that keep our communities, nation and the planet green
and thriving. Endangered by climate change, pollution and politics,
scientists estimate that over 20 countries will be without potable water by
2020. Scientists and economists alike are calling the world's water the
“next gold”.



It is easy in water-rich Ithaca to ignore this larger threat. David Brown
sees Ithaca as an “aquascape”, where water defines who we are and connects
us across boundaries as a community. This Project's goal is to focus
attention locally, within the global context.



PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE



For further information:

Patricia Haines, Level Green Institute

(607) 339-9472 <levelgreen2010 at gmail.com>



Hilary Lambert, Cayuga Lake Watershed Network

(859) 421-3609 <steward at cayugalake.org>
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