ABOUT
ahlay (alexandra blakely) is a singer-songwriter, communal grief tender, and aliveness artist living as a settler on Turtle Island along the Coast Salish Sea. Descended from Scandinavian, Ashkenazi, and British Isles lineages, her work lives at the intersection of song, collective grief, ecological belonging, and the more-than-human world. She thinks of song as a way of making things felt. Song can go where speaking cannot, carrying grief and praise, ecological rupture, loneliness, death, belonging, and mystery into the body. Music enters through porous skin. The heart and belly sense. The bones awaken.

In these gatherings, ahlay carries participatory songs taught in the oral tradition: she sings a line, the room echoes it back, and slowly the song begins to live in our bodies. No sheet music or previous singing experience is needed. Mostly a cappella and sometimes accompanied by drum, these songs make room for grief, praise, collapse, death, joy, longing, ancestral rupture, ecological loss, and our desire to belong to one another and to the living world. A line is sung and a room answers. Separate voices become a living body of sound. We move from witnessing into participation.

ahlay’s albums WAILS: Songs for Grief, recorded with a 200-voice choir, and Anthems for an Apocalypse, a collection of participatory songs for collective liberation, emerge from this practice of collective song as a way of re-sensitizing and re-rooting. Her forthcoming multidisciplinary album, Rites of Nature, extends this inquiry into relationship with Rivers, Forests, Whales, Salmon, Glaciers, Watersheds, ecological science, and the Rights of Nature movement. Alongside the album, she is preparing for an ancestral pilgrimage through Northern Europe, following threads of grief, song, ritual, land, ancestors, and the unseen ::: an apprenticeship in listening and remembering.

This event is for people who have been told they cannot sing, who have lost connection with their singing voices, who are discovering them for the first time, and for experienced singers alike. People of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, spiritual traditions, and relationships to singing are welcome.

To stay informed about her ongoing offerings, sign up for her monthly newsletter.



EVENT LOGISTICS
Event lasts 2 hours 30 minutes

Tickets:
Sliding scale from $22–$66*** (all sales 100% final) w/limited "pay what you can" tickets.
Thank you for finding the sweet spot that's both generous & affordable for you!
Your support covers ahlay’s travel and allows this medicine to keep serving the collective.


Time:
Arrive and settle in: 6:30pm
Song container: 7-9pm

Recommended items to bring: You are invited to bring backjacks, pillows, cushions, blankets if you'd like to sit on the floor. Otherwise there are plenty of chairs for all.

Accessibility:
The church welcomes people with a range of mobility and access needs. A lift provides wheelchair and mobility-device access to all levels of the building, including the sanctuary.

Two all-gender accessible restrooms are available.

The sanctuary can be entered from State Street or through the rear entrance on Sherman Avenue. If you would like information about the most accessible route, assistance using the lift, or have other access questions or needs, please contact the church office at 541-386-1412.

Parking:
Street Parking is available on all roads nearby. There is free parking on Sherman and just know that payment is required in City of Hood River Pay to Park spaces Monday-Saturday, from 8am-6pm

Refund Policy:
Please note that all ticket sales are final, and we are unable to offer refunds. However, if you are unable to attend, you are welcome to transfer your ticket to someone else. Simply provide them with the name under which you purchased the ticket. Thank you for your understanding.

Children are welcome to attend (for free) and play on the periphery of circle / join the circle in singing (please be mindful of distractions).

To affirm the Native People + Land we are on: https://native-land.ca/

Questions: 
please email: [email protected]