The center of Maurice Archer’s big vision starts with dance. He’s known around town as the premier break dance performer, teacher, producer, and owner of A2 Breakdance. He has been bringing his unstoppable energy and expertise to classrooms, after school programs, rec and ed offerings, private parties, intensives, local festivals, and street fairs for years. If you’ve seen the linoleum unroll and a simple boom-box set up for a crew of kid and adult dancers to step in for six step, windmill, kick-up, flare, or a bunch of impressive acrobatic dance moves, then you have seen an A2 Breakdancers’ cipher. A cipher is a circle of dancers, jumping in to share a small mobile dance floor with their handstands, back spins, and fancy footwork before the next dancer tags in.
Posts filed under Local
Conscious Parenting: Ele's Place Ann Arbor--A Home for Healing Arts
Ele’s Place Ann Arbor is a healing center that provides peer grief support for children, teens, and their families in Ann Arbor as well as the surrounding southeast Michigan area, free of charge, for as long as a family needs. Ele's Place Ann Arbor is the only nonprofit in our community dedicated solely to helping children and teens work with, and through, grief in a peer-based setting.
Roadside Marsh
The westbound traffic on Interstate 94 is at a crawl this morning and I couldn’t be happier. It’s a Wednesday and brilliant sunshine glints in my rear view mirror.
Ann Arbor Farm and Garden: Flower Therapy and Community Beautification
Do you like playing in the dirt? Maybe you’re a bit of a novice when it comes to plants, but you enjoy taking walks in neighborhoods that have been enhanced with beautiful flowers, or even learning more about them from an expert. Do you think of ways that plants and flowers can create beauty in a public place in need of some love and care? What about arranging flowers? Are flowers your go to for a loved one suffering from an illness? Would you like to help students who have a passion for botany or in improving the natural environment? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then read on to learn more about Ann Arbor Farm and Garden, an organization that has been giving back to the community for more than 75 years.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Dare to Be with Lauren Crane
I look at a comfort zone like a backyard garden. Plant seeds—let’s say tomato—in rich soil and they’ll grow in fat and juicy abundance. Really cool, you say, this will be my tomato patch forevermore. Not so fast. If you keep planting the same crop in the same plot season after season, you’ll deplete the soil and, sadly, your bushel basket will be bare. But throw in parsnips the next year, plug in peas the year after that, and you’ll keep the soil balanced and fertile, ready for the next good thing. I’ll stop pretending that I have a green thumb and get to the point of this metaphor.
Making Your Own Magic
At age five, Paula Hampton knew that there was something magical about art. The way her mother would hold a pencil to paper and make a face appear on a blank canvas, unaided by anything save her imagination, blossomed a world of possibility in Hampton’s heart.
Brush Monkeys and TreeTown Murals--Beautifying Ann Arbor & Beyond
Ann Arbor has long had a tradition of downtown businesses featuring window paintings on their store fronts during the holiday season. When in 2006 local artist, John Copley noticed a break in that tradition, “I mentioned to Jim Hart of Seyfried Jewelers, that I had enjoyed the holiday window painting that someone had been doing downtown for a while. That year it was not happening. I asked him why and he said, ‘Well, he died. You want to do it?’ And that is where it all began.”
A Walk Within and Beyond: Labyrinths Lead the Way
The bright service-blue sign simply stating “labyrinth” caught my attention as I was driving by St. Barnabus in Chelsea, MI. It was on my literal path, thus destined to be part of my journey that day. Suffice it to say at the start of our walk together in this article, when I stood at the entrance of this 11 circuit, 40 foot labyrinth, I felt a mystical buzz. I was about to embark on a new spiritual entry point.
How York Helped Forge a New Way of Dining Out
When the pandemic started in March 2020, restaurants had to close their doors for a bit of time to re-group. Most were able to provide delivery, no contact pickups, and take-out options. During this time, mobile food folks had an edge. It was truly amazing how food businesses, from farms to restaurants, figured out new ways of operating in a short period of time. York Food and Drink (and many other alternative eateries) made the change successfully and super-fast.
Kindred Conversations: with Hilary Nichols
Where does music begin? When you’re a musician, the search is inward. David Magumba realized that, “Beyond inspiration, you do the work. You make it happen. As a songwriter, that is the effort I am making right now.”
Amy Garber — Promoting Holistic and Psychic Realms for a Quarter of a Century
The Ann Arbor Holistic Psychic Fair became the largest of its type in Michigan as it gave a common arena for holistic practitioners and psychic intuitives to assemble in a mutually respected village for one or two days. Many of the practitioners highlighted in Crazy Wisdom articles have had booths, done readings, or attended informative lectures through these fairs.
Green Living: Bring Your Own Container, Leave with a New Way to Live
It is a song many of us sing every day: the last swipe of lotion on a dry day leaves a container empty; the final drizzle of olive oil escapes the bottle and sizzles on the pan; the old water kettle stops boiling; it is time to throw it all out and start over with something new.
Leaps of Faith: Brighton Light House
You read it right. Brighton Light House (BLH) is three words. That’s because, unlike a “lighthouse,” BLH is not a cautionary beacon on a rocky shoreline—a vision that may have come to mind at first glance. Rather, the light radiating from BLH is one that beckons the community toward it with the sole purpose of providing space for individuals to find, nurture, and shine their own light.
Empowered by Earthella--Ann Arbor's Planet Parade & Action Network
It was a typically beautiful autumn afternoon in Ann Arbor, and I was happily wandering around the Farmers’ Market in Kerrytown, heading toward the People’s Food Co-op. Well, I was mostly happy, aside from that sort of nagging feeling rolling around in the dark back corners of my mind—that antsy sense of restlessness about what’s happening, (and not happening) with our environment, our climate, our depleting soil, our very soul as one entity—human…. “What is really happening here?”
The Creations and Howls of Darryl "Barking Dog" Brown
There is a frenetic energy. There is also a stillness. There is a shape propelling into infinity. There is a cluster of dots, bound so tightly together it makes a heart ache. Here, in this painting, the creative freedom of dreams is restricted only by canvas size. Darryl “Barking Dog” Brown paints to create works that “connect us to the spirit world, through which we may learn to live a more sustainable life on planet Earth.”
Pursuing Detroit's Hidden Gems--Told in Two Voices
As spring wakes us to the fresh colors and new life of this potent season, I feel pulled. The warming weather is a catalyst for change and I for one hear the call. To shop. For its miles of style, substance and swagger, the temptation takes me to Detroit. At over 139 square miles, our big city neighbor can seem overwhelming, so I decide to take a friendly local guide. Omar Davidson, born and raised in Detroit, partnered with me on this exploration and this piece.
Go Outside! A How-To Guide for the Urban Family
As we shiver out of another Michigan winter and into warmer weather, I am building my usual short list of activities to keep myself sane. This list has become shorter than usual due to pandemic safety precautions. Ordinarily it would include more frequent visits with extended family and more friend get-togethers. My sticky note sanity plan has become heavier on more practical reminders like “Sleep more regular hours!” “Take Vitamin D!” and “GO OUTSIDE” which is written in all caps.
Kids in the Community: The Seelie Court of Ann Arbor’s Faery Artists and Events
What have our fairy friends and their artists been up to during the pandemic? To brighten everyone’s spirits, I wanted to track down some fairy fun this spring for the young ones. Might we see more fairy doors pop up around Ann Arbor? Maybe you’ve seen glimmers of whimsical fun around Ann Arbor in the chalk drawings of the ephemeral and adorable characters dreamed up by Ann Arbor’s David Zinn. It’s almost time for the return of Shakespeare in the Arb, and we’re celebrating with a production of the fairy-packed fun of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Ann Arbor is one of the best places around to find events and artists who work on a fairy theme, but like the fae they can be hiding in plain sight. I went searching under every rock and leaf, even a few book jackets, to find you the best fairy-themed events, artists, and authors in Ann Arbor to find while we’re still in need of a little fun.
Namaste, Katie...Our Spring 2022 Yoga Column
Whether you're a seasoned yogi or getting ready to roll out your mat for the first time, here you'll find a variety of useful tips from local yoga instructor, Katie Hoener.
Raptors to the Rescue! Wildlife Ambassadors Teach Lessons in Conservation
Like many people I know, if you told me in the summer of 2020 that the pandemic would probably drag on for two years or more, I would not have believed you. In fact, I would have thought you were a negative, defeatist person, and I would have avoided you like—well, the plague.
