Who
is Jim Berenholtz?
He’s climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
He’s
dived in Caribbean waters to explore ancient ruins.
He’s hiked the Inca Trail to the lofty perch of Machu Picchu,
and made pilgrimage around sacred Mount Kailas in Tibet.
He’s written operas, ballets, oratorios and musicals.
He’s danced for movie stars,
and he's performed music for representatives of the United Nations
from New York to Costa Rica to the Earth Summit in Rio.
He’s visited over eighty countries
and lived with dozens of different tribes,
from the depths of the Amazon jungle
to the borderlands of the Sahara desert.
He’s the author of books that chronicle his adventures.
He’s scored soundtracks for feature films, documentaries, exhibitions.
Symphony orchestras have played his music.
TV and radio have done specials on his work.
Newspapers and magazines have published his drawings.
Organizations have awarded him with scholarships and grants.
He’s
designed the flag and shield of a Native American nation,
and helped them win land back from an eastern state.
He’s been given honorary names by indigenous elders
in both America and Africa, in the languages of old.
He’s fullfilled a ceremonial commitment
spanning six continents and fifteen years
to bury the shed skins of a giant python at sacred sites around the world.
He’s been arrested near his childhood home
as one of six hundred peaceful protesters
who successfully stopped the building of a nuclear power plant.
And he’s circled the world with fellow artists
on a pilgrimage for a nuclear free planet
that culminated with ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He’s
been chased by elephants and had cobras wrapped around his neck.
He’s led seders in volcano craters and concerts at the pyramids.
He’s managed an organic food cooperative, and gone days without
eating.
He’s studied electronic music, and lived six years without electricity.
He’s brought Muslims, Jews and Christians together to record music
for peace.
He’s worshipped as a pagan and let Pan dance through his body.
He’s at home on stage, in a tuxedo or loincloth.
He’s taught in universities and studied with shamans.
He’s slept on dirt floors, and in the mansions of the wealthy.
His life is a bridge between many worlds.
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im
Berenholtz is a multifaceted artist who has been training with native
cultures in the living wisdom of the Earth for over thirty years. Whether
as musician or dancer, writer or speaker, painter or photographer, ritualist
or bodyworker, he is devoted to bringing forth the organic intelligence
that is natural to our species and forging a passionate blend of arts
and activism, thereby celebrating unity in diversity and building bridges
for peace.
As
a composer of music for theatre, dance, film and the concert stage, Jim’s
specialty is weaving together the classical and contemporary musical styles
of the Western world with the indigenous sounds of ancient and native
cultures. His works include the opera “Buffalo
Nation”, the musical “Songs
of Forgotten Relatives”, the ballet “Luna”,
and the film soundtrack for “Lords
of the Deep”. His orchestral compositions have been performed
by the Great Falls and Diablo Symphonies, and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra.
His most recent audio release was recorded at world-famous Skywalker Sound,
near his home in San Francisco. The double CD is entitled ”The
Psalms of RA”, and sets ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Hebrew
texts to his original music, conveying a universal musical language of
light.
As
a performer, Jim is co-founder of the musical duo Xochimoki,
a leading force for nearly two decades in the revival of the ancient music
of the Aztec, Maya, and other pre-Columbian civilizations. He is also
a veteran performer with the Los Angeles Music Center On Tour program,
a former vocal director with the Los Angeles Theatre Center, and has appeared
outside the United Nations and at La Mama ETC in New York City, as well
as performing for peace conferences in Egypt, Costa Rica, and the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jim’s
works as a writer include “Journey to the Four Directions”
(published in 1993 by Bear & Co., Santa Fe, NM), “Eye of the
Dragonfly” and “Shedding Skins - A Snake Odyssey”. These
same books also incorporate his mandalic paintings and photographs of
sacred sites. Over the years Jim has guided pilgrimages to many of these
sacred sites in such locations as Mexico, Peru, Egypt, Kenya, Maui and
Rapa Nui. To date he has visited over seventy countries.
Jim
is widely known as a ceremonial artist, helping
to create multicultural ritual gatherings from Machu Picchu to Malibu.
In 1987 he served as the international coordinator for the Sacred Sites
Festival associated with Harmonic Convergence. In 1990 he designed and
brought together “Circle the Earth”, a gathering of over 300
people, including indigenous leaders and spiritual elders from across
the Americas, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee
Massacre. In 1999 Jim pulled together Bay Area performers with a Hiroshima
survivor to make “The First Light Pilgrimage for a Nuclear Free
Planet”, doing ceremony and performance at nuclear sites across
the United States, Germany and Japan. As a teacher of ceremonial arts,
Jim has appeared at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, Le Fondacion
de Soliel in Switzerland, the Lama Foundation in New Mexico and Kalani
Honua in Hawaii.
Finally,
since 1989 Jim has gained a reputation as an exotic
dancer performing with live snakes ranging in size from five to thirteen
feet. He has entertained for numerous Hollywood movie stars, as well as
appearing at theatres and dance clubs throughout California. In 2003 Jim
created, produced and starred in a dance-music spectacle with twenty-three
other human performers and twenty live snakes. The show was called "Temple
of the Cosmic Serpent", and was performed at Lloyd Wright's neo-Mayan
Sowden House in Hollywood. Through his dance and other creative work,
Jim helps people to realize how we tend to fear that which we don’t
understand. But through understanding we can begin to brake down the barriers
that divide us from other living things, and similarly, from other people.
In this we can establish the foundations for a more loving and peaceful
world.
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