Our
Co-Conspirators
Fires Rising
at Four Quarters
Abbi Spinner McBride:
Creative Director of Fires Rising
Jeff Magnus McBride:
Creative Director of Fires Rising
Joshua Levin,
Ph.D.: Musical Director of Fires Rising
Michael Wall: Musical Director of Fires Rising
Co-Conspirators
Billy Bardo: Fire Circle Medicine
Show
Robin Sol : Shamanic
Healing through Dance
Marcus Sims:
Ta Ke Ti Na Ethno Percussionist
R. Tigre Cruz:
RhythMancer
Katy Gaughan:
Health through Drumming
Deborah Nervig: Movement as Meditation
Mike
Miller: The
Call of the Fire
Whittney
Matlock: Cosmic
Fool
Jason Cohen:
Relationship to Chi
Ken
Crampton: Joy through The Drum
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Abbi
Spinner McBride
Creative
Director of Fires Rising
Abigail is a renowned musician
and teacher of percussion, hand-drumming, dance and magic. She is a High Priestess
of the Family of Fire, and a highly skilled firecircle facilitator. Her creative
abilities in music, poetry, dance and choreography are much in demand at conferences
across the country. For the past decade Abbi has worked with Jeff McBride, traveling
through the United States, Europe, Asia, Indonesia, Africa, and South America
as a dynamic part of his performance as live music director, and lead assistant.
Currently she is a vocalist and co-writer with Zingaia, a top selling world fusion
group operating out of Las Vegas. She also has released two CDs of original music,
Songs from the Center, and Enter the Center, and will have her new CD, Fire of
Creation available soon! |
Jeff
Magnus McBride
Creative
Director of Fires Rising
Jeff "Magnus" McBride
has been voted Magician of the Year by Hollywood's Magic Castle. He is a performance
magician, alchemist and educator in ritual theater, known around the world for
his extensive magical work with masks. Jeff has been seen on many TV specials,
including: ABC's Champions of Magic, NBC's Worlds Greatest Magic
and PBS's The Art of Magic.
He has also been seen on the Discovery
Channel's Mysteries of Magic, where Jeff served as a consultant on shamanism
and ritual magic. Jeff is also a founder of The Mystery School of Magic, the McBride
Magical Arts Center, the Vegas Vortex, and FIREDANCE. He has been facilitating
FireDances at festivals throughout the world for over a decade. |
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Joshua
Levin, Ph.D.
Musical Director of Fires Rising
Joshua has traveled the world following and sharing
in the mysteries of drum, dance, and chant. He is a faculty member at the McBride
School of Magic, served as resident artist with Firedance during its founding
four years, and is regularly invited to share the rhythmic arts at community events
around the country. Together with Deborah Nervig, Joshua is the co-founder of
Sacred Arts Circles and New
World Rhythmatism. Joshua's primary instruments are doumbek/darbouka, South
Asian tabla, and he is an endorsee for Cooperman Framedrums. Joshua is also a
cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. He is a
full professor in the Department of Human Behavior at the Community College of
Southern Nevada. Best of all, he is the proud father of 14 month old son, Jazz!
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Michael Wall
Musical
Director of Fires Rising
In addition to hosting
scores of community music-making events, Michael Wall has taught and performed
on djembe, dundun, conga, frame drum and percussion for many years. He is committed
to reminding the fire circle community that the frame drum, conga, and other sacred
sounds and instruments play a valuable role in the all night journey. Michael
is the co-founder of the Hawaii
Fire Tribe Gatherings and Sacred
Arts Circle - inspired by the power of drum, dance and song as portals to
heart-filled magick and sheer ecstasy! He currently teaches a weekly frame drumming
class, and is an Artist Teaching Partner for the Hawaii Department of Education.
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Billy Bardo
Master
of the Fire Circle Medicine Show, with his healful tonics and smile inducing tictures
of merriment and madness; Doctor Billy Bardo's magical Medicine Show will help
you cure your ills. William Thorpe is a master metalsmith, preacher, artist, musician,
and most importantly; husband, and father. |
Robin Sol
Robin Sol
is a dancer, healer, and mystic. She is currently being sung to by her creative
muse as she teaches classes, facilitates rituals, and writes a book on the topic
of Shapeshifting as a way to understand our inherent oneness. Drawn to the Vegas
Vortex, Robin resides in Las Vegas, Nevada where she offers bodywork, plays with
the New World Rhythmatism ensemble, and dances in the desert wind. |
Marcus Sims
Marcus
Sims is certified as an Advanced Taketina teacher, and continues intensive study
with Reinhard Flatischler, the Austrian master drummer who developed Taketina.
"I spend my time designing and building furniture, home gardening, playing
music for kirtan and meditation, and being active as a citizen. With an open heart
and an affection for the beginner's mind, my mission is to help remember and revive
the power of rhythm into our communities and culture."
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R. Tigre Cruz
Tigre is
a Rhythmic Shaman, drum instructor, drum circle facilitator, and the lead percussionist
for the group KIVA. In the past thirty-three years, he has acquired a wealth of
experience from classical, contemporary, cultural and competitive drumming. He
has studied drumming, drum circle facilitation and performed with Jaqui MacMillan,
Mamady Keita, Jim Donovan of "Rusted Root" and various other well known
teachers. Tigre has taught classes for many organizations such as Four Quarters
Sanctuary of Earth Religion, Carolina Spirit Quest, Sacred Well, and many other
nationally recognized conferences and festivals. He currently resides in Washington
DC.
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Katy Gaughan
Katy Gaughan is
a drummer, dancer, drum circle facilitator and instructor who weaves mindfulness,
breathwork and contemplative action into her drumming and dancing. She believes
in the healing energy of music and encourages health through drumming and movement
with her organization "Music Heals Us." Katy is a key instigator of
Soul Fire Inside, a monthly drum and dance in Washington DC based on the all night
fire circle, and has been certified by Arthur Hull as a drum circle facilitator.
During the day, Katy is on the support staff of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual
Formation. She is also the percussionist with Firewheel and Djesben, two improvisational
musical groups, in the DC area.
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Deborah Nervig
Deborah
Nervig (BA,CMT) has been pursuing movement as a form of meditation, self
expression, and community connection for the past 20 years. Together with Joshua
Levin, she is the co-founder of Sacred Arts Circles and New
World Rhythmatism. Some of the movement forms that have shaped her
dance and teaching include modern, Middle Eastern, Nepalese dance, Kung Fu, and
yoga. Deborah uses movement as a vehicle to reach into the eternal experiences
of ecstasy and ego-less connection with the Source. She has performed in a wide
range of contexts and was recently featured in the television series, Dance in
Nevada. Deborah is especially interested in dance as a way to honor, empower,
and discover the divinity within each of us. She dances daily with her new baby
Jazz. |
Mike Miller
Mike Miller is co-founder of Kindlers
of the Sacred Rhythm, Circle of Dark Eros and Healing-the-Spirit gathering. He
has facilitated many smaller drumming-chanting-storytelling circles and rituals
for a number of DC and Northern VA area magickal groups including the Washington
and Baltimore Area Pagan Leadership Conference. He has also co-created larger
scale rituals for Free Spirit Association's Summer Gathering and Sacred Beltane.
In previous life phases a classically-trained percussionist, summa cum laude psych/philosophy
student and GLBT leader/activist currently working as a Capitol Hill web designer/developer,
the call of the Fire has become a focus point and catalyst reawakening Mike's
voice for chant, rhythm, movement, magick and myth. |
Whittney Matlock
Cosmic
fool, world walker, worker in the web of Life seeks adventurers and playmates
for a game of self discovery. If you are ready to explore the depths of your self,
stretch the limits of your imagination and make ripples in the sea of creation
then meet me at the sacred fire. Drop your mask with me and we'll dance under
the stars to the rhythms of our heart beats. Let's risk being children of The
Universe, playing with our magik until dawn calls us home again.
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 Jason
Cohen
Jason Cohen first began exploring his relationship to energy or
chi at the age of 13. Now at 40, he helps develop community, and builds and holds
sacred space for healing and expressive arts rituals. Jason began facilitating
full moon sweat lodges in Jamaica Plain in December of 2001. He is the producer
of a sacred fire circle gathering called "Forestdance", which began
in Georgia in 2003, visited five states, and is currently a week long and occurs
annually over Labor Day in Massachusetts. Having overcome his greatest phobia
of speaking in front of crowds, his has become an unlikely voice being heard by
many.
The composer/vocalist/keyboardist for Boston-based tribal, medicine,
world rock band "Incus", Jason has recently found an organization called
"the heARTbeat collecitive: Healing and Expressive Artists for Balance, Ecology,
Awareness and Transformation." Jason also serves on the board/council of
the newly formed non-profit "Fire Family Gatherings".
Jason promises
to show up with an open heart, a drum, an accordion, a rattle, a lot a gratitude.
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Ken Crampton
and Everybody
Drum is an outreach program empowering people through the rhythms of visual and
audible arts by visiting schools, working within the community, corporate conferences,
Head Start and at-risk programs. Ken has been drumming and facilitating drum circles
for over 12 years, and has studied with master facilitators and drummers, Arthur
Hull, Babatunde Olatunji, and Mamady Keita.
Ken
is the proprietor of Eyeclopes Studios, which showcases “Locally Grown Art”
and empowers those who have taken the time and inspiration to produce art. A former
student at the Corcoran School of Art, Ken has served as President of the Fredericksburg
Center for the Creative Arts (1994-97) and created the now famous Fredericksburg
New Years Eve Pear. Ken often brings his pet dragon for a little exercise at our
sister event, Drum and Splash |
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