Columbus, Ohio USA
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ComFest: Party with a Purpose

By Spirit and Purpose Committee Members*
May/June 2016 Issue

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Special guest Guante © B-Fresh Photography

Each June, thousands convene at Goodale Park for the Community Festival. ComFest features everything you’d want at a good party – music, libations, and friends. But this festival offers much more. ComFest organizers work year-round to make central Ohio’s favorite festival an extraordinary community event.

The Spirit and Purpose Committee promotes ComFest’s progressive message and community activism, selecting workshops, speakers, healing arts classes, emcees, and more from the wealth of talent in our community. They also coordinate with the Entertainment Committee to schedule children and family friendly activities and performances, poetry, theater and comedy. The 2016 festival will be packed with varied activities for a diverse community.

Healing Arts is an integral part of the festival. Columbus has a rich healing community. ComFest is proud to have excellent teachers and classes this year. Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, and other healing disciplines help reduce stress and aid in relaxation, develop energy, promote health, prevent illness, achieve mental and spiritual peace and help to create deep knowledge for a better understanding of the world. Besides classes at the Healing Arts Tent, there will be similar events early at Live Arts. Columbus KTC leads Buddhist chanting; Bhakti Mamas provide Mantras/Sacred Music; and Three Cranes Grove offers a Community Blessing Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Sacred Bowls with Ben and Joanne Nagel will bless the Peace Tent again this year Sunday morning, with musical sounds from ancient world cultures that cleanse and soothe mind and spirit. People are encouraged to come early and experience a mellow and less crowded ComFest, wonderful performances, classes and workshops, leisurely browse the Street Fair vendors and enjoy delicious food and drinks.

Family-friendly entertainment is ComFest’s standard. Live Arts Stage features a variety of dance and performance, some interactive. This year we will have flamenco, middle-eastern tribal, bellydance, tap, Polynesian, folk, contra, African and contemporary/modern. The ever popular interactive drum and dance circles return. One opens the festival Friday at noon and another truly amazing spectacle Saturday night. Bring your drum and join the fun!

Children’s activities start Friday at noon at Solar Stage. The Children’s Music Network is followed by Young Songwriter’s Workshop with Dave Hawkins. The Live Arts Stage has Forever Unknown and Young Rebel Ghosts, youngsters playing rock music. Other highlights include Mr Eric & Friends Interactive Kids Music, Girlz Rhythm & Rock Camp, and the Westminster Thurber Drummers, a group of young-at-heart senior citizens, showing off their drumming skills. Throughout the weekend Live Arts will have The Muppets Mayhem Band (playing ComFest for the first time) and The Shazzbots. The Bozo Stage will have Lungu Vybz, a powerful, all youth reggae band. ComFest’s KidsArt area opens on Saturday with lots of arts and crafts and activities for the younger set. Located next to the playground, this safe zone is dedicated to children’s creativity.

This year’s special guest is Guante, a National Slam Poet Champion, activist, educator, and underground hip hop artist from Minneapolis. His work explores social justice issues like poverty, greed and discrimination. Gaunte strives to push boundaries in terms of both form and substance. Unapologetically social justice-minded, he’s shared stages with artists like Taleb Kweli, Saul Williams, Brother Ale, Dead Prez, Sage Francis, Andrea Gibson, and many more. Gaunte also serves as a teaching artist on the rosters of COMPAS and TruArtSpeaks (where he also serves as Communications Director), engaging in writing and performance residencies with youth, as well as regularly facilitating workshops and classes on a range of social justice issues. His work has been published in Upworthy, MSNBC, Racialicious, Feministing, The Progressive, City Pages, Artists of the Year list, and URB Magazine’s “Next 1000” list. He has also appeared on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio). Guante will perform at ComFest and lead a workshop about art and activism.

Peace and Solar Tents feature topical workshops about community issues, environmental concerns, women’s and gender issues, racial injustice, and current movements like the effects of big money in local politics. The most imminent and influential community leaders and activists lead these seminars and discussions and answer questions about what’s in the news. For balance, there are comic and improv groups, not to mention the other 250 acts booked on five stages.

Be sure to visit the ComFest Museum in the Goodale Park Shelter House where docents will be on hand to personally talk about ComFest’s amazing 44 year history. Films and photo displays of the “old days” and ComFests past provide fascinating context.

Meet 2016 honorees and grant recipients at ComFest’s Awards Ceremony on the Bozo Stage Saturday afternoon. Register to vote at ComFest. Learn about issues that interest and concern central Ohio, and find out how you can make a difference. Discover ways to improve your health and well-being. Be sure to leave tips at beer and wine booths – we give them to the homeless shelters and food banks. Laugh and play. Feel the joy of community.

Don’t forget to volunteer! ComFest is a volunteer-run festival and depends on everyone to pitch in and help. You’ll earn a tee shirt with this year’s logo designed by Julie Macala, tokens for food and beverages, and a sense of pride and belonging. This is the Community’s Festival!

Pick up ComFest’s unique Program Guide around town in mid-June, or read it online at www.comfest.com. Check there for complete schedules and information, and read about special honorees and the purpose of the event that repeatedly earns the title Columbus’ Favorite Festival!

* Spirit and Purpose Committee members Connie Everett, Darryl Mendelson, Meghan Ralston contributed to this story.

© 2016 Short North Gazette, Columbus, Ohio. All rights reserved.

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