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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL STORY OF THE WAY OF THE RAIN NOW

Courtesy of Sundance. The Way of the Rain.

THE WAY OF THE RAIN

Perhaps the most important story for us to tell is the story of our planet, as it is the story of our own existence. Today, we are featuring this story, told in the most beautiful way, called The Way of the Rain, performed this year at the Sundance Film Festival.

The Way of the Rain, conceived by artist Sibylle Szaggars Redford, is a story about the desert -- but it is also a story about us all.

Deserts are tough harsh places, but they are fragile landscapes. Their ecosystems are delicately balanced and vulnerable to the impacts of our changing climate.

The high-desert plateaus of the Southwestern United States depend on annual monsoon rains to help sustain animal and plant life there. And those rains are changing. Redford creates incredibly beautiful works using these monsoons, both as inspiration and medium.

The Way of the Rain, is a live multidisciplinary performance that illuminates the beauty and power of these monsoons, both in their microcosm, and as they relate to the planet as a whole.

Redford, a Multimedia Environmental Artist, has long been enamoured with the Southwest desert rains. She has a deep spiritual consciousness and is deeply interested in our connection to life, the land, and the world.

She creates magnificent watercolors by first painting colorful organic shapes onto paper and silk, and then exposing them to the rains. The painted forms bleed as the raindrops hit, creating swirls and puddles, redistributing the lines and creating new patterns.

In The Way of the Rain, Redford has collaborated with world-renowned artists to incorporate her paintings into a performance, weaving music, dance, film, light, and spoken word together, to celebrate the physical and spiritual connections to our planet's glory and its plight.

The performance piece is quite fluid, evoking the changing weather patterns affecting our planet. The artists work together in flow, building and recombining, as they roll out their story.

Robert Redford, Sibylle’s husband, performed a moving soliloquy.

The artists also included two-time Grammy winner composer and drummer Will Calhoun (co-founder and drummer of the band Living Colour); renowned cellist and pianist Dave Eggar; Chuck Palmer, percussionist; vocalist and performance artist Sussan Deyhim; singer Marc Roberge; musician Richard On; choreographer Desmond Richardson, whom The New York Times has hailed "One of the great dancers of his time;" the Complexions Contemporary Dance Troupe; lighting director Steve Cohen; sound designer Ron Saint Germain; and multimedia artist F. Thomas McBee.

Adding to the power The Way of the Rain’s message, Salt Lake City, which often sits toward the top of the EPA’s worst air-quality list, hosted the performance at The Complex theater.

Watch a video clip of The Way of the Rain. Check out The Way of the Rain Facebook page. And, most importantly, let The Way of the Rain inspire you.

This week we are celebrating Beautiful Stories, with most of our posts featuring films and performances making their debut right now at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. BeautifulNow will be bringing you stories on location, live from the Festival, so stay tuned here for posts and check our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr pages and BeautifulNow Sundance page for live updates.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Stories in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 02.1.15. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

Photo: Courtesy of Sundance. The Way of the Rain.
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance. The Way of the Rain.
Photo: by ed ouimette. daytime lightning.
Photo: by Todd Shoemake. Rain.
Photo: Courtesy of Corner of the Cave. The Way of the Rain.
Photo: Courtesy of Corner of the Cave. The Way of the Rain.
Image: Courtesy of The Way of The Rain. Untitled.
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance. The Way of The Rain.
Image: Courtesy of Raw Miami Entertainment. Still from The Way of the Rain || Robert Redford & Sibylle Szaggars.
Image: Courtesy of National Young Arts Foundation. Will Calhoun.
Image: Courtesy of The Way of The Rain. Untitled.
Image: Courtesy of The Way of The Rain. Untitled.
Photo: Courtesy of The Way of The Rain by Karsten Staiger. Sibylle Szaggars Redford.
Image: Courtesy of The Way of The Rain. Untitled.