Carpe Diem Arts & Washington Revels present 50th Anniversary of Earth Day Festival: A Call to Action. Live online @ www.facebook.com/events/3185861744780097/ on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 6:30-8:30pm. It’s the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day… and the SHOW MUST GO ON!
The 2020 Earth Day celebration has moved from live to virtual. Rather than postpone the festival to the fall, Carpe Diem Arts and Washington Revels decided to seize the day and merge the originally scheduled event with the monthly Community Family Sing on April 21, 6:30pm — the eve of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
Featured will be an array of award-winning performers to inspire us to mobilize for the sake of saving our planet. The line-up includes Lea Morris, Lilo Gonzalez, Magpie: Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner, Kentavius Jones, Moira Smiley & Seamus Egan, Jennifer Cutting & Steve Winick, Gerdan of Ukraine, Huda Asfour, GRAMMY winner Dan Zanes and Claudia, James Hill and Anne Janelle — plus Rachel Carlson and the Six Degree Singers in a virtual choir presentation of Malcolm Dalglish’s “Walking in the Cradle of Our Land” and Moira Smiley’s “Come and Stand in That River.”
The event is family-friendly and FREE. Donations are requested to help pay our featured artists to help offset losses incurred during the pandemic. Donations will also support an Environmental Education Fund for the creation and delivery of school assembly programs, workshops and residencies, to inspire students and parents to become better stewards of our planet, while also supporting artists during this virus crisis with meaningful and gainful employment. Another project to be announced on April 21 is Carpe Diem’s “Love Songs for Our Planet.”
MORE INFO: [email protected] / 301-466-0183 / CarpeDiemArts.org/earth-day
FACEBOOK EVENT & LIVE STREAM LOCATION — Please forward! www.facebook.com/events/3185861744780097/
PHOTOS HERE
INVITATION TO DONORS AND ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS HERE — with list of benefits
Presented by Carpe Diem Arts in partnership with Washington Revels
Carpe Diem Arts‘ mission is to engage communities across generations and cultures through the visual, literary and performing arts. Based in Silver Spring, Maryland and serving the National Capital Region, Carpe Diem strives to create inclusive communities—where the arts unite, energize, and inspire. More Info: FY2019 Annual Report / https://youtu.be/MTaR68sB6YI
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Founded in 1983, Washington Revels is a multi-generational performing arts community of professionals and nonprofessionals that presents traditional music, dance, storytelling, and drama in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. It produces after-school workshops, community participation events, and performances year round, including May Revels each spring and The Christmas Revels each December.
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HISTORY OF EARTH DAY ~ from EarthDay.org
Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson came up with the idea for a national day to focus on the environment after Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson realized that if he could infuse the energy of anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.
Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media. He then persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair and recruited a 25-year-old named Denis Hayes from Harvard as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land. April 22, falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, was selected as the date.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — took to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment.
Groups that had been fighting individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife united on Earth Day around these shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders.
By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Senator Gaylord Nelson recalled, “but it worked.”
LETTER TO OUR EARTH DAY AUDIENCE
Dear friends,
In this time of crisis, of heartbreak and loss, we invite you to commune with hundreds of others to pause and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on Tuesday, April 21 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. — live, online via Facebook and Instagram.
Carpe Diem Arts and the Washington Revels have joined together to organize two hours of love songs for the Earth, interspersed with brief comments from local and national environmental leaders, designed to calm our hearts, lift our spirits, and remind us that there is much to be grateful for, even in the midst of such great suffering from the pandemic.
Our program will feature local and global award-winning musicians, inviting us into their living rooms to sing along with them. We will hear a virtual choir singing Malcolm Dalglish’s “Walking in the Cradle of Our Land,” and Moira Smiley’s “Stand in that River.” Included will be some magnificent visuals of our precious planet.
To learn more, visit CarpeDiemArts.org/earth-day.
We hope you will join us. The Festival is welcoming of all ages, from all around the world.
Our groups are teaming up to link artists with activists, volunteers and donors with hard-working environmental groups — and to maximize voter participation as the ultimate act of love for our Earth.
Anxious? Depressed? Uncertain what tomorrow brings? What better time to notice Venus rising in the western sky, to gather with others working to protect our planet, and to listen to music that will leave you more hopeful.
Please consider contributing $10 or more in support of the event. We are raising funds for the artists who are lifting our spirits in these tough times — and for ongoing environmental education through the arts between now and the end of the year. Donate HERE. Thank you!
Best wishes,
Busy Graham, Carpe Diem Arts
Greg Lewis, Washington Revels
P.S. If you represent an environmental group or businesses and are interested in having your logo and website shared with our April 21 audience and as part of our advance promotion of the event, please contact us at [email protected] or call 301-466-0183. More info HERE
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