Crea Ruach News and events

Current:
We are presently working towards our involvement with Sydney Project Dance again this year!
We were participating last year and Corinne has found being able to have a Christian presence as dance performer in the city a great opportunity to honour God and raise awareness of people that God is great, worthy of our praise and worship – through the arts!
Therefore we are happy to be involved again and would love to invite everyone who loves God and the arts – especially dance, to come along and join or support us in this ministry!
We are planing to present a few works of our cultural and ministry repertoire, but are also working on a new item visualising the characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit called ‘Complete’. We have been working on representing the law, which was fulfilled by the coming of Christ, then peace and joy.

We are also invited to another Café Church event run and organised by a Baptist Church in Manly end of June!! Details will follow!

Updates on dancers:
Corinne has been taking up some further study at UTS, Media Arts and Production. Her vision and aim is to learn much more about filmmaking and to work towards integrating dance in film. She would like to create artistic dance short films; to bring dance onto screen. During her studies she has completed to short film works, of which one is included in the movie section.

Corinne has also been taking on teaching one class ‘Performance and Production’ at Wesley Institute.

Nicole Serje is expecting another baby, we are all looking forward to meeting her new child soon. Up to then, Nicole has been inputting by helping with choreography on out new work “Complete”.

Nicole Dennis has had some major injury and wasn’t able to dance for the last six months! We do hope thought that she recovers soon and will be able to join us in Project Dance.

New dancers: We have had new dancers join Crea Ruach Creative Arts, which is very exciting. Amy Gill joined last year, and this year Susie Bond and Abbey Puh.
For Project Dance Catherine Davies (Wesley Institute 1st year dance student) has joined us as well. Thank you dancers for coming along on our dance journey in Christ.

Review and reflection on events:
-Splash:
It is now a year since our ‘Splash’ concert, our 10 Year anniversary. See our endorsement section for more feed-back on Splash from people present that night!!!
Corinne’s reflection on Splash:
‘As I reflect back on Splash, I am still in awe and wonder myself!! I think I am left with this remarkable sense of achievement and gratitude. A great appreciation for everyone involved to make it happen, to help produce the night, and an immense love and gratefulness to God, to sustain us through and to accept our honour and praise. I wish with all my heart that more celebrations could be possible, and that dance will become more part of our praise and celebration expressions. May God continue to strengthen us and raise up more dancers and artistic worshippers!
Again a big thank to Auburn Baptist for hosting the night and providing spicy, great cultural dishes– and all the helpers and dancers for giving your best!
I really enjoyed the outcome. What I had intended to achieved, a celebration of cultural diversity came to be! I personally loved dancing all the different dance styles – but I have to say that I soared most in the Swiss piece! A sort of homecoming and sense of belonging did come through for me.

-Project Dance 2007
See above

-Auburn Baptist: Combined Baptist Churches Worship
Corinne presented her Philippians work, which was really well received.

-Café Church Newtown Mission: Conversation
we were invited just after Splash to present two works as part of their program: The Indian and Celtic piece. The evening featured a diverse program, there were singers, musicians, dancers and ctors. The aim really is  ‘to find out what motivates artists, why they perform , what makes them strife for excellence’

- All Things Centre: Fundraising event for Team Mission in Alice Springs, Hosted by the local Aboriginal Church in Redfern and Lucy Jarasius.
We presented the Indian piece and Landmarks. This was a great event supporting mission work in Alice Springs among the aboriginal Community.

- CDFA National Conference:
Corinne’s feed-back:
“It has been truly a wondrous journey to get to the centre for this conference – and we got there and we gathered, as we as Christian Artist love doing.
We literally came to the centre – of Australia – to meet, in Alice Springs. And what a great place it was. Yirara College was a big surprise to me, a great spacious and lovely school to be.
The meeting place, the chapel, offered us many options to find various gathering options – such as big or small circles, facing this or that way, sitting on the floor or in chairs, facing each other or going on journeys around the space, truly the organisers maid sure we didn’t really settle to comfortably, but kept us moving, and on the go, in the centre. I believe that there have been great expectations and hopes for a new thing placed on this conference, and many took up the call and followed, came, met and waited with expectancy for what God had to say, to give.
And even though we waited, we moved, and God moved in and through us – in this special time of the conference. New pictures and words were given (by Lucinda Coleman) and challenges spoken to everyone involved.
The question is: have we heard – and what do we take with us??

The morning worship sessions took us on different journeys everyday. Focusing on the four women in the bible helped challenge and inspire us, to look at where we are at and where God wants us to go.
The workshops offered a wide variety to the participants, and we were blessed with great teachers, fantastic panel discussion and in depth paper presentations.
The evening concerts turned out to be more like gatherings, meeting points and sharing of our creativity and artistic works, as well as hearing our stories and supporting each other in our ministries. They were times of embracement and inspiration.
And there were always opportunities to catch up with people you hadn’t seen for so long. It was a great time of fellowship, of seeking and meeting and of exchange.
Rebecca R and myself represented the NSW committee and were much involved on the running things of the conference. Rebecca took on the responsibility for the teachers, helping with communication with them previously to the conference, set up teacher’s profiles and helped organise the workshops.
I was responsible for the evening concerts, the programming and production. I worked with a fantastic team! We made sure that each contributor was considered and the program flowed smoothly. We prayed and gave each night a theme, which enhanced the flow of the program.
I also taught various workshops on Contemporary and Cultural Dance.
As Crea Ruach Creative Arts we presented three items: ‘Ask’, ‘Landmarks’ and the Indian piece ‘Silsila Ye Chahat Ka’.

- CDFA Dance exchange
Corinne and Rebecca were part of the CDFA NSW committee last year and organised the yearly Dance Exchange. The aim is to bring Christian dancers from all over Sydney together and share works. There was a great mix of performers presenting contemporary, cultural and worship based works. The highlights were the Maori Christian Dance team and the kids from the German School. ( Thanks Karina Klueckman). We presented out at that time newest work: The Glasshouse

- Mira Mansell; Journeying Outwards
Mira Mansell’s dance company ‘Entity Contemporary Dance Collectives’ has put on a concert in December 2007 – ‘Journeying Outwards’. We were invited as guest Company and contributed two items to the overall program.
We had planed to perform a new work ‘The Glasshouse’. This piece was created for the purpose of the remembrance of Corinne’s mother. However, we ended up presenting Surge of Hope and the Celtic piece daughters upon request. The Glasshouse was then premiered at the CDFA Dance Exchange.
It was a good night of contemporary works and our pieces received a great reception.

- United Theological College: A Multicultural Service of Word and Sacrament
we were invited to enhance the Multicultural service though dance. Corinne danced two items: ‘Take my Heart’ and a newly created work for the occasion on Ex 17:1-7, ‘Water from the Rock’. The items were very well received. The service was very diverse and included various cultural worship expressions.

- Fusion Australia Easter March
Brigitte Rakow invited us to present at the Easter March stage program this year. Due to Corinne’s injury, we could only present one item, The Indian Piece. It was a great work to present outdoors and was very well received.
The Easter March is a great evangelistic event, it was again a fantastic opportunity to have a Christian Art presence in the City. We were already invited to perform again next year.

- Women 08 at Anglican Church Lane Cove
Jenny Dennis, now coordinator or CDFA NSW, has initiated a new program called ‘Women 2008’. She is aiming to take this program to various churches in Sydney. She premiered it at her church for a Mothers Day dinner, at the Lane Cove Anglican Church. We presented a work created by Jenny Dennis on Mary and Martha, as well as ‘Take my Heart’.

- Wedding Olivia Smith and Michael John Rohanek
Olivia Smith developed ‘Dancers of Grace’ as part of her project in her studies at Wesley Institute. She had asked Crea Ruach to be the dancers for her promotional video clips and material, this was a few years ago. Olivia was also part of Crea Ruach for a year.
Now it was a very special opportunity for Corinne to bless Olivia on her very special day of her wedding with a dance ‘Bubbly’.
We are wishing Olivia all the best and God’s blessing for her marriage.