Biljana Banchotova Webb is having a 50th birthday party this July – and is inviting neighbours, artists, elders, children “and dreamers” to a five-day ceremony of art, story, music “and belonging.”
She’s calling it the ‘golden owl celebration’. She said the gathering is rooted in the land she owns in Tory Hill and 50 years of “creative becoming.”
Banchotova Webb is founding director of SpiralGate of Art and Well-Being and the Frog Hollow Integrative Art Experience (FHIAE). She was born on July 8, 1976, in South Africa. She said both endeavours are “a living creative sanctuary nestled in the Haliburton Highlands, encompassing Whirling Wisdom Art Studio — a multidisciplinary indoor arts and teaching space — and Frog Hollow Gardens, an outdoor ecosystem rich with ceremony, ecological teaching, and community gathering.”
She added FHIAE is a community, notfor-profit expression of her vision, offering programming rooted in land-based wisdom, ancestral healing, sound ceremony, and the living arts.
Banchotova Webb said she is a certified lead artist educator through the Royal Conservatory of Music and a sound ceremony practitioner with over 26 years of collaborative work alongside First Nations communities.
She added her practice weaves together creational energy, natural law, drumbuilding, stained glass, and the healing power of story “always in service of the land and the people who walk upon it.”
She noted the main celebration will be on July 11-12.
Banchotova Webb said there would be a welcoming sacred fire ceremony led by an Indigenous African guest; a story bench dedication; an ancestral spiral garden dedication; bead-seed weaving circle; aerial art and performance; and a tea party
“This is more than an event — it is a living story being written in real time, in the soil and sound and ceremony of the Haliburton Highland,” she added.
The venue is at 18378 Hwy. 118 Tory Hill. For registration and information Email: froghollow118@gmail.com
This weekend
• June 25 – live music hosted at the Great Hall at HSAD featuring Joel Saunders 5-6 p.m.
• June 27 – truck pull and show and shine, hosted by the Kinsmen Club at the Minden Fairgrounds, all day.
• June 27 – fly-in at Stanhope Airport 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. • June 27 – Dorset Heritage Day at the museum 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• June 27 – Sustainable Shores & Gardens at Abbey Gardens 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• June 28 – Dorset Arts and Craft Show 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the parkette.
• June 28 – Strawberry Social at Wanakita, noon to 4 p.m.
