KANAB — The 14th annual 2020 Amazing Earthfest, reorganized online to protect the health of participants from the COVID-19 pandemic, offers self-directed outdoor adventures, documentary films, workshops and seminars to stimulate discovery and learning.
The free, all-online festival celebrating public lands in the American West opens Saturday, July 18, at 2 p.m., on Zoom with music, reflection, thought-provoking commentary and inspirational poetry. The opening event titled, “Invocation to Sustainability”, is intended to forge connections among public lands enthusiasts by exploring the world of spirit, ethics, ideas and personal resilience in an atmosphere of mutual support.
Interludes of music will bracket the program. Selections include an excerpt from the opening movement, O Fortuna, of Carl Orff’s arresting 1936 cantata, Carmina Burana, performed in 2018 at Libby Gardner Hall in Salt Lake City by the American West Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, led by Conductor and Violist Joel Rosenberg, and Gila Monster, original music for piano composed and performed by the brilliantly inspired Navajo Pianist Connor Chee.
Recitations of original poetry by members of the Kanab Chapter of the Utah State Poetry Society will induce moments of silent reflection, stimulate, and re-awaken feelings of wonder and concern for the natural world.
The award-winning screenwriter, author and filmmaker Stephen Most will deliver the keynote. His remarks will address collaborative conservation including history, key principles, and success in advancing sustainability citing the achievements of Aldo Leopold in soil conservation, forest health in the Sierra Nevada, and the return of cultural fire as a form of renewal in the Klamath Basin as examples.
Stephen’s latest documentary film titled Wilder Than Wild, co-produced by Kevin White, will be screened online Saturday, August 22, at 6 p.m. After the film, Stephen and Kevin will join the audience for an online conversation about our changing climate beginning at 7:15 p.m. on Zoom.
An earlier documentary by Stephen Most titled, River of Renewal, about resource conflicts in the Klamath River Basin is also featured at this year’s Earthfest, screening virtually on Saturday, August 8 at 6 p.m. Discussion and response to questions led by Stephen afterward will begin on Zoom at 7:15 p.m.
A career producer of documentary films, Stephen scripted Fire and Forest Health, about the Teakettle Experiment in the Sierra National Forest, and The Greatest Good, a two-hour documentary history of the Forest Service, as well as Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time. Stephen will accept orders for signed copies of his new book, “Stories Make The World: Reflections on Storytelling and the Art of the Documentary.”
On Sunday, July 19, beginning at 3 p.m. on Zoom, Richard Jenkinson, former president of the Utah Rock Art Research Association presents a program on the rock art of Snake Gulch, illustrating pictographs there with D-strech technology to bring forward the artist\’s ancient and faded markings.
August and September events include a master class in astrophotography with Dave Lane whose night sky images of deep space objects have appeared in NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day; a “coffee chat” with Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, friends group for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument; the first in a series of four educational astronomy presentations by Paul Ricketts, program director for the University of Utah’s South Physics Observatory titled, “The Universe”; the award-winning documentary film, “Let Them Eat Dirt,” about the human micro-biome, and more.
Visit the website online to register to attend and obtain links to access all programs. Festival events continue on alternate weekends into the month of November.