What Freedom Means At Earth Beat Festival
Here at Earth Beat Festival, freedom is at our core. We want people to be their most authentic selves and for our festival to be an inclusive space for everyone. Here, we explore the concept of being free and ask festival-goers what it means to them.
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Time is infinite, yet our experience on this earth is fleeting. This is why, as a collective and as individuals, we deserve to live in freedom. To experience the feeling of freedom, to live within our truest and most expansive selves.
We’re certain that if you’re reading this, you likely agree.
But everyone has a different perspective of what freedom means to them. Our worldviews, spirituality, experiences and identities differ. At Earth Beat Festival, that is where we see beauty. We see it in the differences of individuals and in the unique energy at the essence of each of our beings. We welcome everyone, at every stage of their personal evolution.
You’ll never be asked to fit inside a box at Earth Beat Festival. We love weird edges, powerful transformations and ever-evolving personalities.
What defines you is the energy and openness you bring to our celebration space. Your willingness to grow and your ability to feel your full spectrum of emotions is what we cherish.
Here, we’re diving into the sense of freedom you’ll experience at Earth Beat Festival – and what we hope you’ll gain after immersing yourself in our kaupapa.
At Earth Beat Festival, We Don’t Discriminate
Humanity has a long and fraught history of discrimination. From the Suffragette Movement to the Civil Rights Movement to Me Too to Black Lives Matter, people have long spoken up against the silencing and shunning of individuals. As societies, we’ve passionately shown that the collective has the power to make incredible changes.
In our Earth Beat collective, we’ve determined that co-creative, transformational events have the power to create change. Through a mass vibration of personalities, people and worldviews, we aim to strengthen our relationship with the Earth – and collectively form new ways of living in harmony with it.
“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.”
Vernā Myers To be an inclusive, non-discriminatory community, we ask all in our community to live by these principles:
Speak from a place of respect and communicate with compassion and curiosity
Connect with people from all walks of life, and invite the diverse experiences and opinions of others
Keep an open mind and an open heart
Pause and self-reflect before reacting with defensiveness or judgement
Show kindness and care towards others
Practice nonviolent communication How Does Our Community Perceive Freedom?
We asked Earth Beat creatives and attendees what freedom means to them. Filming their answers on video, we strung their words together to produce the below video – which sums up the essence of freedom at Earth Beat Festival.
We’d love to hear from you, too. DM us @earthbeatfestival on Instagram and share your views on freedom.
Making Space For Artistic Expression & Cultivate Creativity
A core part of our Ngā Mātāpono, our values and principles, is to do what inspires you. To experience lightness and joy. Art is one of humanity’s greatest ways to express ourselves freely and passionately.
Freedom, to us, includes doing what you love. A core part of this is artistic expression – and here at Earth Beat, we love art in all its forms.
Here are just some of the art forms that we cherish at our festival and in our day-to-day lives:
Music – at the core of our celebration, there are magical sounds
Comedy – the importance of laughter can never be overrated
Theatre – step into stories and outside of your own mind
Circus – from spinning to suspending to lifting, the body holds endless expression
Live art – bodies are beautiful, in all their flow
Poetry – words are one of the most powerful tools we have
Installation art – from sculpture to painting to abstraction, it’s a feast for your senses
Dance – whether it’s synchronicity or pure release, dance is medicine
Want to know the full music lineup for Earth Beat Festival 2022? Head here to take a look.
In Our Safe Space, Feel Free To Question The Dominant Narrative
In a homogenous world, diversity, difference and fresh ideas would suffer. Questioning the dominant narrative is how movements begin and changes are made. It’s the wide spectrum of differences that make life so beautiful.
At Earth Beat, we encourage you to ask questions. To stand up against the dominant narrative – if we feel we want to – we must be endlessly curious and inquisitive with our words. This same approach applies at our festival. We may disagree with others, but asking questions having conversations with people who are different to ourselves can create a more harmonious community.
While we aren’t supportive of the current cancel culture movement, we do ask for respect and compassion at our festival. Quite simply, we are willing to give folks a chance to be involved regardless of their history, so long as there’s self-awareness and a commitment to going forward in an evolutionary direction.
We believe in freedom of speech, but we also believe in choosing our words with compassion.
At Earth Beat, we aren’t the sum of our past mistakes. We believe in radical inclusion and don’t create prerequisites for attending. If you want to be at Earth Beat, and are willing to show up be part of this co-creation, you deserve to be there. And you’ll be welcomed with loving arms and curious minds.
If you’d love to join us at Earth Beat Festival, you can take a look at our ticket options here .
