Sunday, Sept. 22. 3:30–5:30 p.m., San Francisco, The Park Chalet: The 2013 JAMband Family Festival. Children need only bring “your dancing feet, a loving mind, and a peaceful spirit.”
It’s Charity Kahn’s two-hour, highly interactive exploration of compassion, nonviolence, and mindfulness, using a six-piece band, original music, and 18 to 20 stories. For kids 10 and under.
Kahn is a classically trained pianist and Stanford graduate who studied mathematics and went on to become a software engineer. But on the side she always kept playing, and after the birth of her first child, now 14, she began to write songs for him. That led to concerts and albums and teaching parent-child movement classes, which led to more concerts and albums and so on. Her focus in this concert is on conflict-resolution.
How does she convey these themes?
“For example, one of the songs we sign is called “Lemonade,” which tells the story of a magical land where wonderful little fairy creatures live and are stewards of the land, and with their hands and hearts they take care of the lemon trees, the sugar cane, and the water, and they make this amazing lemonade, and so they’ve created this very beautiful life. But then one day a very angry, fiery dragon comes and threatens to smite them and burn their trees, and the fairies decide that rather than flee or fight they will make lemonade, and low and behold, the dragon, who was a little lacking in the love department and just needed some kindness, totally changed and became their friend. And so it’s the peace offering of the lemonade that did the trick.”
Kahn tells the story before singing the song and then draws the children into a conversation about what they would do in such a situation, if they were being bullied for example.
“We talk about how we always have a choice, no matter the situation, and we can choose between anger and violence or some kind of peaceful alternative.”
Kahn has been doing this for 13 years. We asked her whether small children seemed to have changed much in that time. “Not their essential child nature,” she replied, “the sense of awe, a feeling of open mindedness, a willingness to explore. I don’t think that’s changed. But clearly their relationship to technology has changed: They’ve become so much more savvy, and there are now so many more attention issues. There’s just too much going on. I’m thinking particularly of the 5 to 9-year olds that I see in our Jamband camp. They often seem over-stimulated and constantly exhausted. Which is why we incorporate a lot of unstructured time.”
The next JAMband camp is on Saturday, October 26, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The theme is “Mindfulness.” There’s a music and dance session followed by a pancake brunch, a collaborative art project, and mindfulness exercises. Camp is limited to 10 children. Cost is $60. Day camps are held at Kahn’s house, which is in the Outer Sunset District of San Francisco. There are other camps in November and December.
Visit the jamjamjam.com website for more info on the event and upcoming concerts.