Name: Invocation Festival
Start: 2025-08-28T16:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-08-31T16:00:00+01:00

Invocation
Festival of Movement, Sound & Song
~ May we sing and dance our dreams into being ~

Thursday August 28th – Sunday 31st August 2025

Invocation is a festival to nourish you through exploration of movement, dance, sound, voice, and embodiment.

Our unique voice and dance is a gift to be explored and shared, when we come together to dance and sing, community arises.

Pick and choose from the beautiful offerings from our experienced facilitators to explore your uniqueness. Lose yourself in music, movement, sound and sensation. Find yourself in the groundedness of your feet.

In this age of technology, digital stimulation, fast pace information and disconnection with nature, our nature – let’s come together and be present to the gift of these moments of creation, sharing all it is to be human through these rich modes of exploration.

This is an alcohol and drug free festival. We can get high on being alive right now, honouring all our emotions, similarities and differences through movement, sound and song.

Check out our program

Click here to view the PDF

During this festival we will experience:

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation
involves spontaneously co-creating vocal music with others, in the moment. Sing your heart out, listen for the song of now. Presencing, connecting, sensitising, thrilling, scary, this art form has changed many peoples lives – including mine.

Voice Authentic
Voice Authentic is an invitation to liberate and empower the individual to express the full range and resonance of the voice, cultivating inner peace and self-connection through a dynamic blend of ancient and modern practices.

Dance Connection
A restorative movement practice for connection, expression and balance. Each dance pathway is carefully crafted to guide you through a myriad of movement explorations, progressively paced to eclectic music.

Indian Ragas
Incorporating this ancient practice helps reveal the voice as a powerful instrument allowing for the expression of deep emotions, creativity, and spiritual resonance.

Resonance Body
Go into your body and get your voice out of it. A 60 min practice lying on the floor, exploring the somatics of your unique voice, one body area at a time. It can be deeply relaxing, support trauma healing, and help you get to your full voice and experience sounds you never heard yourself make before!

Sound Baths
Relax and receive a shower of percussive sound. Sound vibration penetrates the body. Bring your mat, blanket and cushion to be comfortable.

Movement Medicine
Movement Medicine is a practice of self-awareness based on free dance, blending ancient traditions with modern science. It invites you to be present in the here and now, re-discover who you are and manifest yourself in the world.

Who is this for?

This festival welcomes everyone, regardless of dance or singing ability.

It is equally suited for experienced dancers and singers seeking connection, expression, and nourishment of body, mind, and soul.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Our Unique Voice And Dance Is A Gift To Be Explored

What are the benefits of spending 4 days together in this intimate festival?

Singing and dancing are beneficial for body, mind and soul.

The many benefits of Singing include:

Relieving stress and tension; boosting confidence; improving breathing; participating in a mindful activity; and so much more.

Dancing has some crossover benefits, it also:

Improves balance and coordination; enhances social connections; increase levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin; builds stronger bones and muscles, and so much more….look it up and you’ll see lots of supportive research. What often isn’t mentioned though, is how deeply both dancing and singing connect you to your essence self, and open gateways to soul expression and connection.

Since time immemorial people have dance and sung, as Beethoven knew “Music has the power to revolutionise our world”.

As we journey together through movement and voice – the naturalness of expression, uniqueness of each other, and sense of community, are gifts bestowed on us all – deepening day by day – as Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”.

Meet your Facilitators

Julia Hope Brightwell (aka Jewell)

Julia, Creative Director and Teacher of Dance Connection. I’v always loved to dance 5 Rhythms, Ceroc, Movement Medicine, and Biodanza.

In April 2020, during lockdown, divine inspiration flooded through me, even giving me the name Dance Connection…. and the rest has been a labour of love bringing this restorative practice into the world, training others to do the same, and continuing to expand the music, dances and inspirations that come continuously. It feels very alive. The Dance Connection Community in Dorset is strong, and my vision is to have more teachers to spread it further through the UK. Before this I was a Colourist, Montessori Directress and I have a Psychology Degree.

Workshop: Relational Dance - Interconnected

By exploring this rich theme dancers can explore their own individual expression and at other times the sense of merging with the collective. Humans are inherently social, and the workshop gives many opportunities to explore this in the dance – through space, distance, connection, relational dance explorations – copying, unison, etc. and group dances that offer a container.

Participants will explore relational movement, spatial awareness, physical distance, guided through a rich pathway of exploration.

Relational Dance gives us a strong sense of both our individuality and how that is within the dance (alone and with others), and also a sense of unity that can arise in group dances with common themes that interconnect us – where our sense of individuality dissolves.

‘Separation’ and ‘Unified’ are two polarities that we explore. We are in relationship with all of existence – there is so much richness to explore.

Our dancing body can bring awareness through body messaging that can bring insight into the unconscious and subconscious parts of ourselves.

Through dance we can express, and move things through and out.

Workshop: The Creative Spirit - Dance Connection

Nearly everyone is born or has been born with an innate sense of creativity. Creativity isn’t being able to draw or paint – those are some artistic ways of expressing creativity. The use of imagination or original ideas to create something is a simple way of defining creativity. As we are all unique in our individual blueprint, we by the matter of living and expressing ourselves can express our creative spirit.

Movement and Dance is a perfect vehicle for expressing the creative spirit – without words we can be freer to explore and express away from ideas of right and wrong doing. We are blessed by a plethora of musicians, singers and composers that create a diverse and wide range of sound and music to support our exploration.

In this workshop we will explore sometimes by ourselves, sometimes together, creative ways of moving, expressing, connecting. Like a garden full of delicious fruits and beautiful flowers, there is so much to explore.

You can expect to be invited to explore movement. Encouraged to leave judgement at the door, in a natural (only to your way) delight and be curious as to what expression you explore.

This pathway will be balanced between active and slower sections, and designed to help you explore your innate creativity and express your soul and spirit.

Workshop: Relax & Slow Down - Dance Connection

Slowing down and relaxing can allow your body to speak more clearly to your mind – in essence there is no separation – the bodymind is a reflection of the interconnection we all have – and yet sometimes we can feel divided, separated, parts of us dominate, other parts are pushed away.

The simplicity of taking your time to arrive to your body in movement, allowing things to unfold and naturally express, relaxing into all of it with acceptance and welcome can be an amazing gift. You might be surprised by the profundity of such a simple approach.

You can expect at the least to feel more embodied and relaxed, however in my experience there is so much more gold in slowing down than perhaps we all realize.

When we slow down together, we witness more about each other, we can behold each other almost as sculptures, beautiful human creations – individual expressions of the divine.

Gavin Frank

Gavin is a singer, voice facilitator, Kirtan leader and musician. He has more than 25 years experience of empowering people to find their voice.

Gavin runs chanting groups, voice workshops, retreats and one to one sessions in the UK and Europe. Gavin records and performs in the duo Madrum and they have created 3 albums. He is currently working on some new material including some mantras and original songs.

Gavin is passionate about nature, travel, good food, yoga,the gym, 5 rhythms and of course music.

Sing for Your Life is not just a vocal workshop—it’s an invitation to return to the ground of your being. Through breath, body, sound, and presence, this experience is about uncovering your true, authentic voice—not just the one that sings, but the one that speaks from the depths of who you are. Drawing on practices such as grounding, elements of the Indian scale, body work, movement, free voice, and vocal improvisation, we’ll explore how the voice lives in the body and how it connects us to our life force.

Workshop: Sing For Your Life

Prefer to watch the video? click here

Sing for Your Life is not just a vocal workshop, it’s an invitation to return to the ground of your being. Through breath, body, sound, and presence, this experience is about uncovering your true, authentic voice, not just the one that sings, but the one that speaks from the depths of who you are. Drawing on practices such as grounding, elements of the Indian scale, body work, movement, free voice, and vocal improvisation, we’ll explore how the voice lives in the body and how it connects us to our life force.

Participants will walk away with three core outcomes:

• A deeper sense of self, getting to know who you are beneath the surface through your own sound.

• A stronger connection to your authentic voice, not just musically, but as an expression of your truth in the world.

• Tangible, embodied tools, practices that can resource you in everyday life, helping you feel more grounded, joyful, and alive, no matter what you’re facing.

In times of uncertainty and disconnection, Sing for Your Life is a call back to aliveness, presence, and joy—starting from the ground up.

Workshop: The Sacred Octave

The Sacred Octave is a transformative vocal journey through the Indian scale and a specific raga that holds the balance of light and dark.

Rooted in the ancient power of swaars—the essential sounds—this workshop invites participants to experience their voice as a singing body. These tones are more than musical notes; they are energetic, spiritual, and vibrational pathways that open the body from within.

Through simple, accessible practices, we will explore how sound moves through us and how it can unlock deeper layers of presence, energy, and personal expression.

Participants will leave with a renewed relationship to their voice and a set of tools to continue developing their vocal and energetic practice. You’ll discover new ways to listen to yourself, to feel sound in the body, and to express your own melodies and songs from a place of inner resonance.

Whether you’re new to voice work or an experienced singer, this is an invitation to explore sound in a different way, one that builds a strong, grounded, and open voice from the inside out.

No vocal experience is required, just a willingness to listen, feel, and explore.

Workshop: Heart Song

Prefer to watch the video? click here

Heart Song is a voice workshop and a gentle journey into the deep intelligence of the heart.

Through sound, movement, and mindful vocal exploration, this space invites you to reconnect with your true voice, your heart song.

This is not about performance or technique, but about cultivating presence, self-love, and the courage to meet yourself exactly as you are.

Through the power of sound, particularly using the nourishing tones of the Indian scale (with an emphasis on ma), heart-opening chants and mantras, and intuitive vocal improvisation, we open pathways to healing, strength, and self-worth.

Whether you’ve never sung before or have years of experience, this workshop is open to all. Together, we explore how to use the voice as a tool for deep connection, to access inner wisdom, and to receive ourselves more fully.

The experience is designed to support three key outcomes: discovering and connecting with your unique heart song, nurturing your inner value and strength, and learning to listen to and receive the truth of your own being. Come as you are, your voice is welcome, your heart is ready.

Ilaria Franchi

Ilaria is a Movement Medicine Teacher and a Focusing Practitioner, living in northern Italy.
Based on her personal family story of loss and disconnection from the body, her main focus is on strengthening the connection with the life force that is inherent in every human being.
She discovered the transformative power of free dance 18 years ago and that led to a lifelong journey of self-discovery and growth.

She leads group workshops and individual sessions online and in person, as well as outdoor projects. She has offered seminars to students at the University of Verona, Department of Educational Science, and in other social contexts.

She is also trained in offering Movement Medicine to people who have experienced grief and loss.

Workhop: Inhabiting Your Dancing Body

This Movement Medicine session invites you to land fully in yourself—body, breath, rhythm and presence.

It’s a gentle, welcoming introduction to the dance floor, designed to help you inhabit your body with curiosity and care. Through guided free movement, we open the space to unwind from the day and travelling, awaken your inner vitality, and reconnect with the living intelligence of your body.

Why does this matter?

When we arrive in a new environment, our bodies often lag behind—tight, scattered, or on alert. This workshop offers a soft and powerful transition. It supports you in releasing travel tension, settling your nervous system, and meeting yourself and others in a more relaxed, embodied way. Movement becomes the bridge, from mind to body, from isolation to connection, from holding back to gently opening up.

What will you experience:

Embodied Presence – A deeper sense of being in your body, awake to sensation, breath, and movement.

Renewed Energy & Fluidity – Release of stagnant tension, with more ease and aliveness flowing through muscles, joints, and awareness.

Relational Grounding – A felt connection with others that goes beyond words, building the roots for trust and shared experience.

Whether this is your first Movement Medicine session or part of a longer journey, Inhabiting Your Dancing Body offers a grounded and enlivening start.

Workshop: Elemental Forces

This Movement Medicine session is an invitation to dance with the universal energies that move through all life: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.

Through embodiment and free movement, we connect with these elemental forces not just as symbols, but as living presences within and around us.

We explore how they shape our expression, nourish our resources, and deepen our capacity to relate to self, others, and the unseen realms.

In a time when disconnection is the norm, reconnecting with the elements offers us a way home, into the body, into nature, and into meaningful relationship. These energies live in our breath, our emotions, our bones and gestures. Dancing them allows us to feel more resourced, more aligned with life, and more attuned to the bigger field of which we’re a part.

What will you experience…

Energetic Resourcefulness – Recoon the grounding of Earth, the passion of Fire, the flow of Water, and the clarity of Air in everyday life and challenging moments.

Expanded Movement Vocabulary – New textures, qualities, and expressions in your dance that reflect the richness of these elemental energies.

Deepened Connection – A felt sense of being in relationship with the wider web of life: with others, with community, and with the invisible world that supports and holds us.

Elemental Forces is a moving prayer, a ritual in motion, and an invitation to dance not just as yourself, but with something much larger. Through the dance, we remember that we are not separate, we are Earth dancing, Fire dreaming, Water feeling, and Air breathing.

Workshop: Dancing Our Invocation

Dancing Our Invocation is a Movement Medicine journey into the power of intention, presence, and embodied prayer.

Through conscious dance, breath, rhythm, and awareness, we give form to what deeply matters, inviting the body to speak, the heart to guide, and the soul to call in what it longs for.

This is a space to move with what is sacred to you, and to offer your dance as a living invocation: personal, collective, and beyond words.

In our busy, fragmented world, we often forget that the body can be a temple, and movement a form of prayer. This session reconnects us to that truth. When we dance our invocation, we align with the deeper currents of life, awaken our creative power, and become channels for what wants to be born through us.

This practice invites clarity, coherence, and connection—within ourselves and with the wider field of life.

What you will experience…

Clarity of Intention – A grounded, felt connection to what you are calling in or offering up—be it for yourself, your community, or the world.

Embodied Expression – The freedom and courage to let your movement become a vessel for what words cannot say.

A Sense of Belonging – Dancing as part of a web of others who are also listening, remembering, and offering themselves in service to something greater.

In this session, the dance becomes a bridge—between the visible and the invisible, the personal and the transpersonal. We don’t just move for something. We move with it, as it, through it. Each gesture becomes a seed of intention, each breath a thread in the tapestry of collective transformation.

Michelle Crozier

Originally from an opera and musical theatre background, Michelle embarked on an amazing journey of self-discovery through bhakti yoga and sound healing. She fell in love with the practices many years ago and hasn’t looked back since. Michelle is a multi-instrumentalist and a versatile singer who originally began as a kirtan drummer and backing vocalist. She then achieved her dream of composing and recording an album of mantras, titled Journey of the Heart.
Michelle loves to lead kirtans, hold sound healing and ecstatic drum dance events, and has never been more fulfilled. She created Self Care Sunday wellbeing events to combine all of these musical passions.
She loves to take people on a magical, healing journey through using her voice and intuitive music, and is grateful she has found her soul purpose.

Briony Greenhill

Briony is a folk/soul improvisational artist and a renowned teacher of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation. She lives in Devon with her family, loves dancing, nature and pleasure, and wants to help usher in a Thriving Life Paradigm.

Bart

Bart is passionate about creating positive change, shamanic healing, music, and community.
Bart has a big and generous heart and loves to support people in finding their way back to their hearts and inspire them to live a meaningful and nourishing life. Bart will be offering a sacred sound journey at the Invocation Festival. He is a director here at Leela & was the founder of the Brightsky community.

Darpan

Introducing Darpan who will be sharing with you the profound effects of a Gong Bath. This powerful session envelops you in deep sound waves, bathing every cell of your body, promoting healing on all levels. Attendees often leave feeling deeply rejuvenated, refreshed, and restored, making it essential for those seeking rest, reconnection to self, and inner peace. Join Darpan and let the magic of sound healing transform your festival experience. Darpan has over 25 years of experience in sound healing and is a certified member of the College of Sound Healing.

Briony Greenhill is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” The Guardian

“Gavin brings a fresh talent and an inspiring presence to the world of voice and sound. The key to his genius is a simplicity of being that is too often missing in the everyday arts marketplace”.

Chloe Goodchild-Pioneer of The Naked Voice

“I have been participating in Dance Connection workshops for 3 years. The Dance Connection pathways have been portals into a deep sense of aliveness, joy, harmony and community. I feel a sense of wholeness that I rarely feel in everyday life. I work as a GP and I find that the dances facilitated by Jewell are the perfect antidote to my often overly stimulated, information processing mind. I can immediately drop attention into my body and feel in tune with its needs, inclinations and living wisdom. The harmony that occurs during some of the group dances is awe inspiring and very moving. If you want to discover a new outlet that will promote health and happiness more than you can ever imagine, I would thoroughly recommend trying Dance Connection.”

Bryan, Doctor, Ireland

May We Sing And Dance Our Dreams Into Being

CLICK HERE FOR BOOKING AND PAYMENT

All volunteer spots are currently filled

Details:

Arrival: Thursday August 28th 2024 @ 4:00pm
End: Sunday August 31st 2024 @ 4:00 pm

Ticket price includes festival, food & camping with your own tent gear:
Full Price: £320
Joint booking: £580 (2 places saving £60)

Payment Plans are available for all tickets to spread out the cost with no additional charge.

Accommodation options:
Camping £0
Own campervan £0 (plus £20 hook up if needed) 
Dorm £80 
Deluxe Dorm Bunk FEMALE £120
Deluxe Dorm Bunk MALE £120
Regular room in house £200 
Large room in house £240
Premium room £260
Premium Ensuite room £280
Single Pod £180
Double Pod £220
Bell tent (Glamping – double bed): £160
Shepherd’s Hut – £220

Information about our accommodation here!

Invocation Festival

August 28, 2025 @ 4:00 pm - August 31, 2025 @ 4:00 pm

Our Unique Voice And Dance Is A Gift To Be Explored

Workshop: Relational Dance - Interconnected

Workshop: The Creative Spirit - Dance Connection

Workshop: Relax & Slow Down - Dance Connection

Workshop: Sing For Your Life

Workshop: The Sacred Octave

Workshop: Heart Song

Workhop: Inhabiting Your Dancing Body

Workshop: Elemental Forces

Workshop: Dancing Our Invocation

May We Sing And Dance Our Dreams Into Being

Event Navigation

Address

Menu

Subscribe to the newsletter

Tracking Cookies

Third Party Embeds.

Invocation Festival

August 28, 2025 @ 4:00 pm - August 31, 2025 @ 4:00 pm

Our Unique Voice And Dance Is A Gift To Be Explored

May We Sing And Dance Our Dreams Into Being

Share this with your friends

Event Navigation

Address

Menu

Subscribe to the newsletter

Tracking Cookies

Third Party Embeds.