A note regarding the In.dance Sufi Dance Course on the 19th
Link to the Sufi course on eventbrite: https://dtr.cool/sc19
Heya friends and family,
If you would like the Sufi Course to go ahead this month, I require confirmation via booking either through eventbrite, phone or email.
I will run this for three people minimum per month and while there has been a lot of interest there has been just one concrete booking.
I plan to provide the opportunity for this course once a month a week before the main In.dance Just Home Fundraiser event every month in order to give people the chance to get more acquainted with the form.
In regards to finances, for the purposes of transparency and honesty - 80 per person for the Sufi course is a bare minimum and with three people that makes 240 gross income - I will be preparing booklets (4 hours work), printing them (7 dollars per booklet), practicing music and preparing and adapting the materials to better suit the needs of the community (20 hours in a month), renting the space to run the course (50 dollars), purchasing snacks and chai for the event (40 dollars), not to mention petrol used in doing all this and also this month I did not put up physical posters which would normally be minimum 20 dollars (design and printing) and then facebook advertising (30 dollars minimum), not to mention the hours spent promoting and pushing the events. If you're any good at maths you notice that the money that ends up in my pocket is little if not anything at all. This does not include money required to replace music gear or instrument parts - let alone money for actual living costs for myself that may be left over.
As a musician with many projects and styles of acts, I have more than one avenue to draw in revenue and I am fast on establishing ways to make this more fluid in order to better serve others with my craft.
I feel it important to make these clarifications as to be quite frank, I live in a chicken shed, I now have no other income but my music - everything I have goes into it - yet I still feel the pressure to do more and more without charge. I do an insane amount of work and practice - it never stops. I feel that a lot people within similar creative realms face the same dilemma - and unfortunately by saying all this, it works as a detractor from me as people don't seem to want to know or understand - wanting the benefits for as little as possible without considering the responsibility and accountability of the cost behind it. I know this perspective because it has been me also.
As a street musician that has literally lived on the streets for over 10 years, I am not concerned with 'making it' - I've seen first hand the putrid essence of fame oriented industries, the social hierarchy and the behaviour that it squeezes out of people - I prefer that somehow honesty shines through my actions to affect the greater whole that we all may benefit, dismantling this hierarchy of perception and the perception of 'holiness' that is placed on things in order to validate a spiritual or 'valuable' experience.
I'm being real and honest and I expect nothing less from the people around me. If what I do does not work here, I will continue somewhere else. I am not without options.
In the meantime, I will continue being myself giving most of myself to my craft for the passion of life in the service of others - which yes, is my choice. If we don't live for others what do we live for? However we must also be on our game as to be selfless and vulnerable within a pack of wolves is a sure fire way to get eaten.
I feel that if we are all honest we can see the running costs in each others lives and work towards alternative sustainable economies. Almost everything in life is an exchange - we become aware of when it is we take and we give in return to the level we believe we took - if we do this actively and take responsibility for it, we can withstand any economic cataclysm in front of us.
Let's point our intuitive compass towards the true solution.
Thanks for reading and I hope to see you soon!
In love,
Monty