Event Phone: 415-377-6239

Dance as Medicine presents:
Borderless Beats w/Yemanjo + Honey of the Heart/Brightside Blue superband + Keith Hennessy

We are SO excited to present to you a spectacular evening of music and dance that will lift your spirit, enable deep connnections, get you dancing and nourish your spirit!  All this at the spectacularly beautiful Hillside School venue in North Berkeley, an artistic project/development of Finnish entrepreneur Sami Seppälä, who has done absolute MAGIC with the space!

There is a beautiful chill lounge plush with couches, mood lighting and ambient music + delicious food by Sacred Decadence

https://www.facebook.com/SacredDecadence

To warm us up for the evening, Keith Hennessy will be leading you in a 45 minute Healing Play/Contact Improvisation workshop.  If you haven’t experienced Keith’s magic, you are in for a treat.  He will set a delicious, connective, playful environment to help get us in the mood for the rest of the evening.  More details below!

Then, Honey of the Heart/Brightside Blue superband will delight you with their amazing heart-centered and soulful music.  Two established NorCal bands, both duos of love and music, have united to create a ‘Superband’ delivering folk-soul-roots-rock-latin/flamenco grooves, swoon-worthy vocal harmonies, and wailing solo-spiked jams – all offered in a spirit of care, humor, and hopes for a better world.  Don’t miss this!

https://brightsideblue.com/superband 

Finally, a dance set with the one and only Yemanjo, who has been touring the world with his phenomenal new album ‘La Misma Fuente’.

Yemanjo is a project of producer, DJ, and singer/multi-instrumentalist Ben Harris. Born and raised in the rich cultural stew of California’s Bay Area, Harris has called Lake Atitlan, Guatemala home since 2016. His original music is a polyrhythmic concoction of downtempo/ethnic house beats blended with traditional instruments and tribal chants from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East–influences drawn from Harris’ near-constant world travels.  He is getting more and more well-known every day on the international conscious dance circuit in Europe, the US and in Central America.

Layout of the evening:

6:45pm – doors open
7:15-8pm – Contact Improv/Healing Play class w/Keith Hennessy
8-9:15pm – Honey of the Heart/Brightside Blue superband
9:15-10:45pm – Ecstatic Dance journey w/Yemanjo

Come for all of it or just the parts you desire. You are welcome to choose, though we encourage you to get the full experience.

Tickets are on sale NOW for $38.  They will increase to $41 on Oct 4
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Our amazing presenters/performers:

Keith Hennessy – Healing Play (https://circozero.org/)

A contact improvisation (CI) class for all levels of experience that integrates deep somatic attention with playfully curious movement. The basic practice is a duet dance in which mutual touch and shared weight is non-verbally negotiated in real time – a dance of improvised connection. Healing Play centers consent, empathy, co-sensing towards an ethics of solidarity and care.

Keith Hennessy, MFA, PhD, is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch, playing in the fields of improvised dance, queer performance, affordable housing, and erotic healing. Keith started dancing CI in 1979 and has been studying and troubling the practice ever since. Raised in Canada, living in Ramaytush Ohlone territory/San Francisco since 1982, he tours widely. Using improvisation, ritual, collaboration, and protest, Keith instigates queer embodied experiences that respond to political crises. Hennessy directs Circo Zero, co-founded the performance/culture spaces 848 and CounterPulse, and was a member of Sara Mann’s Contraband, 1985-1994.

Yemanjo

Yemanjo is the musical moniker of producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Ben Harris. Born in the cultural goldmine of California’s Bay Area, Harris became enamored with the music of Latin America and Africa at a young age–an obsession that only grew when he began traveling the world at 19. Yemanjo began as an organic/electronic exploration of the shamanic music of South America, but quickly grew to include West African and Middle Eastern idioms as well. With the release of the full length “La Misma Fuente” album on Wonderwheel Recordings in 2024, Yemanjo is revealed in the full flower of his artistic promise; the production is a crisp and warm mix of acoustic and electronic elements with Harris’ live trumpet and other instruments woven throughout. From lyrical composition and vocals on the title track, this is cosmopolitan, tasteful beat-making with a deep understanding and love for the cultural traditions which inspired it.

Honey of the Heart/Brightside Blue superband

BrightSide Blue & Honey of the Heart have played festivals such as Beloved, Imagine, Cascadia, Oregon Country Fair, Whole Earth Festival, Mystic Rising, California World Fest, SoulPlay, Relaxpansion, as well as listening rooms and other intentional gatherings across the country. No matter if they’re playing to 20 or 2000 people, they always create an energetic, moving experience for their audiences.

Both bands have had the privilege of sharing stages with some awesome musicians and friends including:  Blues Traveller, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Rising Appalachia, The Polish Ambassador, Ayla Nereo, Simrit, MaMuse, Peia, Deya Dova, Wildlight, Mariee Sioux, Handmade Moments, Shimshai, and more.

The level of enthusiasm from fans at this early stage in the group’s union foretells a spectacular road ahead. While there is no knowing exactly how it will unfold, the chances of crying, laughing, or dancing wildly during a live performance is nearly guaranteed.