Welcome...

As community singing is re-surging as a technology of reclamation, belonging, and mobilization toward a soul-based, liberation-oriented future, it is abundantly clear that aware, skillful, and vibrant facilitation of song is more and more needed. Shireen Amini (non-binary using she/her) unintentionally found her way into this particular work through the tributaries of singer-songwriter performance, drum circle facilitation, circle singing, and sound healing. Now with 4+ years specifically leading community singing, she holds this role as "songleader" with such honor and joy, constantly learning from and inspired by her elders and colleagues in this calling.

If you are feeling the call and notice there are some "how to" pieces that need support, nourishment, inspiration, or you've never led song but are excited and curious, this workshop may be the perfect meeting point for you. The first half of this event, Shireen will invite a collaboratively-informed learning process to feed your songleading practice...topics and exercises covered may include:

• how to set a strong cultural container

• musical skills and knowledge that help

• song, music, lineage acknowledgement and storytelling

• tending well to traumas in relationship to music

• how to teach a song, how to "ride" a song

• techniques and strategies for orchestrating parts

• holding the energetics of more-than-just-singing possibilities i.e. ritual, grief space, play, dance party

• requests from you!

After we have nourished this craft with substantial behind-the-scenes exploration, the second half of our event will be an experience of Shireen leading the community in her own brand of song circle. She'll weaves stories behind the songs that have come through her as medicine, those arising out of pain, reclaiming of power, and irrepressible feelings of joy, into the skillful teaching and spirited singing of them in community. Having received these songs in collaboration with nature and spirit, she knows that if their medicine has brought her such strength and healing, they can for others as well. And so it has been. Songs like “I Am Free in my Body,” “Gather Your Resilience” and “The Sun Song” have rippled out, meaningfully, far and wide.

In a field of firmness and care for the nuanced realities we walk in with, including complex relationships to singing and various forms of lived marginalization, Shireen will set the space to increase the potential for safety and bravery. Powered by groove and soul, voices, percussion, and guitar, our community will become a live organism, present to emergence, the co-created magic and movement of the moment, available to whatever way the medicine shows up for us, here and now. All prostrations are welcome: sitting, standing, walking, shaking, dancing, laying flat, as the body has full permission to do what it intelligently knows to do to hold intention and release. Sing for your curiosity, your broken heart, your anger, and your belly laughter.

Shireen's hope is you come away more empowered to lead song where it is needed and feeling just a little more free.

In this container:

No experience is necessary, all levels are welcome

We believe singing is a birthright and welcome all levels of experience. We teach short-form songs on-the-spot, usually through call and echo.

No matter your race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, size, neurodivergence, abilities, or housing status, you are not only welcome and wanted here, you belong here.

Evening flow:

Arrive and settle in: 6:30-7pm

Song container: 7-9pm

Cost:

Regular Ticket: $25-55 sliding scale

Pay what you can / No one turned away Ticket: $0-$24 >> enter Access Code: CARETICKET

Teen Ticket: $10 >> enter Access Code: TEEN

Kids 12 and under are free

BIPOC* Scholarship available. Contact host.

*Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color (including mixed race) who cannot hide their non-whiteness, whether through skin color, name, accent, or physical features, and who experiences a particular kind of other-ing, discrimination, and disadvantage that white or white-presenting folks do not experience.

Mutual Aid:

10% of proceeds will go to Middle Eastern Children's Alliance (MECA) offering aid to children and families in Gaza.

Land and people acknowledgment:

This event is taking place on the unceded territory of the Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone people.

Community care:

This event is indoors! Please come free of Covid or contagious symptoms. You are most welcome to mask and distance to your own comfort level.

Parking:

Street parking. Folks encouraged to carpool. There is no public transit near the venue.

What will be provided:

Water

Some seating (couches and chairs)

Restroom facilities

What to bring:

A cushion or chair

A water bottle and/or tea mug

A notebook (if you like to take notes)

Any blankets and layers you need to help your body feel comfortable

Bio:

Shireen Amini (non-binary using she/her) is a queer Puerto Rican-Iranian American, earth-loving song creator, rhythm maker, and community facilitator based on unceded Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and Grande Ronde territory, aka Portland, Oregon. As a human, she carries a deep commitment to her own liberation path and vision of a more just world. As an artist, she believes strongly in music’s power to propel cultural revolution. She blends pop, rock, hip hop, latin, and roots sensibilities with socially-conscious themes as a singer-songwriter and creates modern medicine music for community singing. In song circles, she holds transformational space, leading joyful, groove-based songs, evoking tenderness, and often engaging her participants in the rhythm and ceremony of it all. She also teaches drumming and facilitates ritual as part of her community-based music empowerment project, Shireen Amini Music Medicine.

Photo credit: Isaac Mintz (https://isaacmintzphotography....)

Thrive Street Choir presents: Songleading Workshop & Experience with Shireen Amini

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