Artists for World Peace bring annual Dance for Peace event to The Kate

June 23, 2015 12:01 am • Last Updated: June 23, 2015 12:16 am

By Amy J. Barry, Special to The Day

Dancer Cajai Fellows Johnson wearing the International Peace Belt at last year’s performance at The Kate. (Photo by Michelle Zava)

“Artists for World Peace” sounds like a rather ambitious cause — and where do you even begin?

“One person, one village at a time,” says Wendy Black-Nasta, founder of the non-profit organization that brings artists together with activists to celebrate the creative spirit in the name of peace and raise funds to benefit humanitarian causes around the world.

“I look at it on a very micro level,” Black-Nasta explains. “The idea of world peace for me as a person who has been a life-long peace activist, is you can’t be a person of peace if you don’t have a place to live or can’t feed your family — if you’re worried about basic survival. We (raise funds) for education, feeding the hungry, providing a safe place for people to sleep at night. This to me is the focus of creating peace.”

This Saturday evening, “Artists for World Peace” will present its third annual Dance for Peace fundraiser at The Kate (Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center) in Old Saybrook, featuring eight local and regional dance companies. Each will incorporate a unique element into their original performances: The International Peace Belt.

The Peace Belt, created by Black-Nasta, an acclaimed jewelry designer and teacher, is what got the “Artists for World Peace” foundation started.

After seeing one of her jewelry students perform a belly dance, Black-Nasta says she was mesmerized by the sight and sound of the belts worn by the dancers.

In 2000, she began collecting old European coins that were being replaced by the Euro to incorporate in a “belt for peace,” asking friends, family and jewelry clients to mail her coins from their countries. In countries where she couldn’t obtain coins, she used gemstones found in that region. Two years later, she had 144 pieces from 100 countries and fabricated the belt with the help of two apprentices and 11 students.

“We made thousands of sterling silver links and wove and soldered them together,” Black-Nasta says. “Even the concept of that is to weave all people of the world together and soldering them in addition to making the chain strong was to give that idea of strength — that we’re one world, one people.”

Requirements for wearing the Peace Belt are that the artists agree to meditate on world peace and to be part of a documentary that’s updated every year.

“In the end, we’re going to have a documentary of the entire project — it’s very long term — until we get to every country,” she says. “Everyone can see exactly where the money (they donate) goes.”

Since 2003, the three-and-a-half foot long peace belt has traveled to 29 countries on five continents where it’s been worn during hundreds of artistic performances, sacred ceremonies and at peace and spiritual gatherings, including at Ground Zero in New York City.

What began as a grassroots initiative in Connecticut has brought hundreds of artists around the world on-board and continues to expand the scope of its projects. To date, Artists for World Peace sponsors the living and/or educational expenses of children in India, China, Haiti, Tanzania, Nepal and the United States. The foundation implements sustainability projects, builds “safe houses,” supports women’s shelters, supplies a local food bank, and awards scholarships and fine arts grants.

One of its biggest annual events is Peace on Broadway, a co-production with a Broadway producer at which 25 Broadway stars sing and dance at a performance at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

Over seven years, enough money was raised from this event and others to build a health center in Tanzania.

“We create these projects and host different art events each with very specific goals,” Black-Nasta explains, for example, to raise the roof on the health center, to install electricity in the building.

Black-Nasta also came up with the idea of sponsoring one child’s living and education expenses per country — where the nonprofit has a presence — until he or she completes high school.

Her husband, Robert Nasta, a musician and composer and the foundation’s musical director, created “an amazing concert series,” says Black-Nasta, that’s held in their living room in Middletown once a month at which musicians perform, donating their time and fees to help sponsor the children.

Dance for Peace at The Kate will fund a scholarship program for high school and college students majoring in the fine arts, who are in need of financial assistance, the majority of whom are from Connecticut. Willow Wells, a Middletown High School student attending Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in the fall, recently won a scholarship. Named in memory of Dr. Yoram Kaufmann, a life long supporter of education, this scholarship will eventually support the education of children around the globe.

A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

“The opportunity to produce this event, for me, is another opportunity to share with the community the power of movement,” says Kerry Kincy, producer of the Dance For Peace. “In light of all that is going on in our world, this dance, like all dance, is an opportunity to connect on a much deeper level than words allow for.

“Historically, dance was a way for different cultures to give voice to their struggles and find peace in the active part of the experience of moving together,” Kincy continues. “There’s something really special in utilizing movement’s ability to connect and give voice. It’s a universal language we all speak.”

Dance companies and individual dancers at the Kate performance include Ekklesia Contemporary Ballet; Rivka “La Azucumba” Isskandreyya; Elm City Dance Collective; Island Reflections Dance Theater Company; Lenard Foust; Sonia Plumb Dance Company; Coleman Dance Company; Joel Melendez; and Lorelei Chang, dancEnlight.

“There are many diverse vocabularies of dance planned for the evening,” Kincy says. “What’s shared among all of the performers is that their intention is simply to use the language of movement to evoke the spirit of peace in a way that helps audience members feel connected and become a part of the collective sense of peace. It truly works in regenerative ways, and starts with each of us individually.”

The event is funded by a grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development through the Connecticut Office of the Arts. Dancers are each sponsored by a different individual. All food and wine at the pre-show reception and performance is donated, and the Kate is donating $38 out of every $40 ticket to the scholarship fund.

“People are so generous, we’ve grown so exponentially, we’re not a small organization anymore,” Black-Nasta says. “People are lovely, if we ask for help, they (come forward) with huge amounts of money in in-kind donations. Everybody gives what they can.”