Community Song Circle - Every Monday - Drop In

Name: Community Song Circle - Every Monday - Drop In
Start: 2025-01-06T17:30:00-06:00
End: 2025-01-06T18:30:00-06:00
Location: Casa de Luz

Schedule

Mon Jan 06 2025 at 05:30 pm to 06:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

Casa de Luz | Austin, TX

Join us every Monday for our weekly community song circle at Casa de Luz. Come sing with friends, learn new songs, and share the songs that are singing you!
When: Mondays from 5:30-6:30pm
We end promptly at 6:30. Feel free to come anytime during the hour, even if you can just pop in for a few songs.
Where: Casa de Luz
1701 Toomey Rd, Austin, TX 78704
Serena room (the first room on the right off of the main pathway just past Third Eye Cacao). It’s climate controlled!
Who: ALL VOICES & AGES WELCOME & CELEBRATED! Bring friends and family.
Fee: These circles are donation based.
Suggested donation $20.
Cash or Venmo @Rakefet-Laviolette
No one turned away.
Break Bread with Us Afterwards: Many of us stay after singing to enjoy dinner and fellowship together at Casa. Join us.
Privacy: This song circle is an open container. People are free to come and go. Photos and recordings are ok.
Parking: Parking is free after 4pm in the lot on Toomey near the sports fields.Street parking is paid through the City machines or app. You can also park for free in the Town Lake parking spots in the lot behind Zach Scott at the intersection of S. Lamar and the lake. It’s a short walk across the fields to Casa de Luz.
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What is Community Singing?
Liz Rog shared this great description:
Here are some of the elements that might distinguish ‘community singing’ from other forms of singing:
All voices are welcomed. There is no audition and no hierarchy of voice.
There is generally no paper to look down at. People are learning and remembering through oral tradition. Since written musical notation is not a universal language, this offers access to singing for more people.
People generally stand/sit in a circle. This amplifies the idea of equality and also, since people are not looking down at written music, helps all to see each other and feel seen. In this way we viscerally feel that we are singing for each other.
The singing is not aimed at performance; it’s done for the pleasure of the moment. Though sometimes there is optional, low-stakes performance as in a variety show or community fundraiser.
The songs are easily accessible to anyone. No special education or language of formal music is needed; the songs are short enough for most people’s memories; and the emphasis is on what the collective rather than individual memory can hold.
It’s most often unaccompanied by musical instruments. In this way we can remember that even with just our voices we are strong together.
It’s often intergenerational.
The current community singing world that I know embraces all of the practices above, each in their own locally-grown way.
But in addition to these there are other values found in the very spirit of the singing-together:
a named and felt intention toward building community
a strong and generous welcome of all voices and all experiences (joy, grief, love, nature, spirit, play, mystery, diversity, respect, light and darkness)
a celebration of the way that each voice matters in the making of the whole of our sound
encouragement for those interested to learn how to step into the ever-growing circle of shared local leadership
the invitation for anyone to listen for the songs that are being made inside of them and to share those songs
and brave listening for how our choices of songs invite us to consider their origins, messages, and impacts in a world that needs both our voices and ears.