Music Festival at Butterfly Day

An exciting day of musical and theatrical performances for all ages is sure to delight Butterfly Day attendees.

By Stephen Powers

The music festival at Topanga’s Fourth Annual Butterfly Day will feature nationally renowned recording artists alongside showcases of local rising teen talents and young musicians of the Camp Cabaret All-Stars. The festival starts when doors open at 10 a.m. and continues all day until 6 p.m., closing with a groovin’ jam by Promised Land, in a tribute to the Grateful Dead.

Meet the Musicians

Michael Whitehorse Aviles, a San Fernando native and elder of the Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, will begin the day with a Tongva ceremony to honor the sacred lands of Topanga and Tongva tribal territory. He is a descendant of the Southern Paiute and Western Shoshoni People of the Mojave River in the Mohave Desert near what is now Victorville, California, and regularly performs sacred Tongva ceremonies and land blessings on indigenous sites. traditional flute player and, with percussionist Kentyah, will honor the sacred lands of Topanga and Tongva tribal territory. He plays a traditional, indigenous flute and will be joined by percussionist Kentyah for an intimate improvised performance.

Donna De Lory is a singer, songwriter, producer and multiinstrumentalist whose radiant voice and expansive musical vision encompasses pop, world music, electronica and devotional mantras. She is also a Topanga mom who, with her husband Rob, was instrumental in developing the idea of the first Butterfly Day. In that inaugural event, Donna performed with the third-grade class of Topanga Elementary, with whom she wrote and recorded a song entitled “Butterfly Day,” sure to be reprised at this year’s festival! While Donna is well known for her work with Madonna as a singer and dancer—seen in the documentary film, Truth or Dare, and on Madonna’s world tours, her voice is heard on landmark albums and her own music has topped the Billboard Dance Chart. Simultaneously with her storied pop career, De Lory is one of the world’s foremost singers of devotional mantras and songs of spiritual inspiration.

Antonia Bath hails from Hastings, East Sussex, England, and has worked as an actor, singer and voiceover artist since graduation from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television. She is Director of Camp Cabaret, a musical theatre camp located in Topanga and also sings in the band Kummerspeck, a Topanga Days local favorite for classic rock. She has performed nationally in the renowned Cirque Bezerk and has played venues nationwide from the Howlin’ Wolf to CBGBs.

Peter Alsop, Ph.D., is a beloved longtime Topanga resident, loving husband of Theatricum Artistic DirectorEllen Geer, Dad, Grandfather, video producer, feature film director, actor, and a Certified Experiential Therapist with an open mind and a sense of humor. He is a nationally known singersongwriter, kids performer, educator and humorist whose 22 albums and seven DVDs have received eight Best Children’s Album awards. Peter is a board member of, and directs the “Kids Koncerts” at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, which is a community sponsor of Butterfly Day. This year the theater is celebrating its 50th Anniversary and will also celebrate butterflies at the event with a performance by its company of actors of vignettes from the upcoming repertory season!

Antonia Bath’s Camp Cabaret Allstars is in its 23rd year of providing an extraordinary outdoor musical theater experience for children. Founded by the “Queen of the Fairies of Goodness,” Antonia has a knack for pulling performances out of the shyest little members of the company and encouraging the fiery light within her stage-loving, performance-loving rising stars. Among other youth and teen performers, Camp Cabaret will showcase performances by teen campers Aurora Finetti, Allegra Frost, Iset Powers, Rebecca Land Hill, and Quinlynn Scheppner

Aurora Finetti and Allegra Frost. These talented local teens are both alumni of Topanga Elementary Charter School and have performe in school musicals, Topanga Youth Services Talent Shows, and Camp Cabaret. Aurora Finetti recently sang the National Anthem at Topanga Days. Allegra Frost was the youngest entrant ever at the Santa Barbara Old Time Fiddle Festival and ended up winning third placein the mandolin competition.

Josephine makes melodies in her Canyon studio nestled above the Theatricum Botanicum. As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer, she recently released her debut EP, “Paradise,” and will soon follow with a counterpoint collection entitled “Lost?” set to be released in May. On the wild side, Josephine surfs whenever the waves are good and then pairs a relaxed musical soundscape with lyrics that reflect the paradox of our time. At Butterfly Day, Jospehine will be joined by her rockstar band: Max Shashoua on guitar, Pink Skies on bass, and Amanda Erwin on drums.

Promised Land Spread your wings and fly at Butterfly Day! Shake your bones, move your body and let your spirit ride on waves of sound, rhythm and tone through the spiritual wellspring that is the music of the Grateful Dead with this Dead-inspired jam band featuring Mike Russeck, Ashton Slater, Dan Stein, Jeff Hiller, Clinton Clark, and Kentyah, plus surprise special guests! Like a migrating monarch, ride The Golden Road past the Dark Star in search of the eternal Promised Land!

Petition

Taj Mahal surrounded, cameras and lights. Throngs screaming, Give us our rights!

Mindless chanting for change, today, for respect and freedom long since given away.

Oh, Holy Government! Only you can save. Care for us from cradle to grave.

Please do for us what we can’t.

Security and equality only you can grant.

Practical Love Poem #33

Summer in the backyard is sitting on the Sears Porch swing, with a fringe On top and you can move By touching the ground and Pushing off

Summer is called Margo after a street near The college. It’s Margo Wearing rolled down suntan Stockings with garters At the knees, a beige scarf on Her head.

Summer is half-cut cantaloupes Filled with coffee ice cream That freezes the fruit into Popsicles

Summer is threading dried Seeds together to make A necklace.

It was just like Margo said It’s Fry-day and then it’s nice To be nice. But mostly summer was The story about a little girl With a little curl right in the middle Of her forehead who, when she held Yellow daffodils near her face, The color of butter reflected on her chin.

—Millicent Borges-Accardi

Practical Love Poem #46

On a land line from the UK Joshua enquires, does he have one Eye? Or a television for a face? What color hat? Is he round like Humpty-Dumpty, or does his head come to a point in the back? Is it the one with the webbed skull Face or the orange ghost with a star On his chest? Does he have a horn? Are his arms in fists? Or does he Look like he is wiping his mouth? The special ones have dents

In eternal delusion we forever abide.

—Greg Mamishian

In the bottom, he adds. Are there swords across his stomach? Does he have pointy ears like a pig or square ears like a box? Does he have feet? I think it’s Powi or it could be Welu. In frustration, he shouts, What number’s on the back? Is It seven? If it is orange, it might be Mindok or Moor he says carefully As if talking to a smaller child. I have three Horos he exclaims proudly, But only one Terin. I’m looking for a Beli And a Dosk. Thomas Charles lost Okimo in the backyard. What color was the packet? Was it gold or red? He is furtherly frustrated when I have to explain my eyes are too old to see The microchip in the circle on the back of each toy figure. Josh says, continuing On from our dialogue of a few minutes Ago, I have one of those you mentioned Before, in turquoise but it’s a twin. I’ll send you the double Gogo in purple. It’s a sort of pink purple with two white eyes, one of them is larger than the other but they are connected by a dark line under the nose, like a mask. He’s a villain, Josh proclaims, A very bad man but, With special powers, he says, I think You’ll like him a lot.

—Millicent Borges-Accardi

Every Day’s A Season

There’s a strong clean feeling of a successful day turning the earth and turning with it.

Planting the seeds to raise our daily crop.

Watching over seedlings and harvest.

The better-off afterwards of it all.

The now-to-sleep of having given it your best to wake and seed the crop of light given by god to do his work and yours by that same light.

It’s all we can do.

All we know to do since there’s no instruction sheet—

Or rather there’s too many instructions of every kind from every source for what to do and what to believe.

But what do we believe?

And what do we do?

What comes to us directly, unprompted by other forces?

What is our Nature?

We wake. We eat. We forage. We sleep. We Love. Laugh. Cry.

We sleep and we wake to another day, another chance to earn and spend the heart’s currency of being alive.

To buy freedom for ourselves and the ones we love.

To sleep and start over the next day.

We do what we can.

Bat the balls as they come across the plate.

Answer the calls.

Put ourselves out there.

Calm our nerves and strengthen our resolves.

As a child of nature, every day’s a season.

Every hour a story.

Every minute a flight.

Every second a second chance.

No matter the day, it’s gone with sleep and the dance of the divine.

We always rise to bigger things.

Is there a better game than life

To begin and end, wind playing us like a song?

We give our best.

At night, we rest.

To begin again, anew.

Modern Day Testimonial

Susan Clark, my creative healer, my fierce nurse. Persevering as fire, patient as a sacrificing mother. When I was broken, you carried the vision of my recovery. And insisted on three mile walks along the bluffs.

You taught me the meaning of advocate.

Squaring your shoulders in turquoise scrubs, Using medical-speak, rendering primary doctors pale And ready to grant authorizations.

You combed out my rat sookens* hair. And kicked our home into a higher gear. I will be forever enriched by your stories, your wit, And the queen sized breakfasts!

Though I squawked and howled, and clawed At the air, your hands remained calm.

Topanga Animal Rescue is God’s work, and I am The luckiest animal you’ve ever saved.

—Megan Rice 2019

—Alan J. Adler

BY DAVID ANSON RUSSO