This is kind of a note from the culture lab of Tribal Harmonix which is planning its first conference Friday May 18 and 19 in Vancouver on the Canadian Victoria Day weekend tentatively being named Intention Convention. The impetus for this was sparked when we heard through the grapevine about a wonderful opportunity for some community building while scouting venues for the 10th annual Earthdance Vancouver and later for our 8th annual Intention Retreat. We chose not to go with this venue but bookmarked it for a potential spring conference. 2007, Year of the Boar is the fertile time and things are beginning to happen in planning this out and i want to sound out a call to my network to see who might be within range of interest and availability for this event which will have a strong local community flavour (since we gots that here) and (i am invoking now..) a strong westcoast and beyond flavour. This will follow on the heels of the 8th annual Faeries & Fools Masquerade on the Sunshine Coast the weekend before (www.fairiesandfools.org/).

The last and only real intentional dance culture conference that has ever occured of this era has been the Gathering of the Tribes (www.gottribes.org) in Los Angeles which later merged with the Laytonville Earthdance in California and has since gone into hiatus. The Gathering of the Tribes Foundation which was forming had made considerable contacts and alliances to progressive organizations, speakers and allied with the Prophets Conference (www.greatmystery.org/) which brought a lot of spirituality meets science type presenters.

The inclusion of workshops in the context of festivals and events has been a strong tradition in the Lower Mainland BC tribal dance network for the past decade which I've witnessed spread down the coast to many festivals which previously had little of this. It is becoming a potent facilitator of culture crafting and I consider that the conference is a big part of the needed container to separate from the distractions of any given festival to go deep into community building.

This is a test pilot for a possible ongoing conference series that will allow the local community as well as westcoast networks and beyond to link up pre-summer for coming together and looking at where we're at while looking at where we want to be when we're older, when we have families to feed, and the contributions we can make as servant communities onto the whole of creation.

I am approaching the intentional dance culture to provide me with feedback on anything going on that weekend ( i know of the Village Building Convergence in Portland (www.cityrepair.org/ ) and aim to forge some kind of link up ) as well as back up on creating the appropriate homing signal that will bring in the needed catalysts to fine tune the strengths of this cultural movement. Part of that is linking with all resonant visionaries and community animators, to potential speakers and communities within and in proximity to the dance culture who share a knack for utilizing celebration as a tool, and have an aim towards increasing global sustainability, greening festivals, tribal economics, creation or consolidation of guilds ( www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild -excellent reference) to harnass the potential of the cultural creative forces that we collectively wield.

And..yes we are having a celebration as part of the conference. It's going to be something Vancouver area has not seen in a long time. The potential for a massive sized event of 500-800 people going all night with access to a rooftop chillroom. There has not been a venue like this ever before in this region. This is a great gift that is coming to us and is being shared with the networks which align in the one heart nation. Tribal Federation anyone?

Stay tuned for more on this via www.tribalharmonix.org. There will be a website created for the conference.