Here we are on Lake Michigan, in the woods.
All these acres of gorgeous property, nature.
It's an ideal location for artists to find inspiration.
We've got this beautiful place, and it's conducive to creativity.
It elicits inspiration.
It's called Bjork London, also known as the Door County Campus of Appleton's Lawrence University.
It's usually a sedate retreat center hosting weekend seminars.
But for one week each year, it's home to an energetic celebration of the arts,
ironically named Decaf.
Decaf, what we call it, is the Door Kinetic Arts Festival.
Kinetic means movement, and Decaf is non-stop.
For those of us who are in the field of art that is kinetic in some way,
it's just an extremely inspiring and enriching time.
It's not just an arts festival, it's a kinetic arts festival.
What's that mean?
Kinetic art is moving in space, but mostly it's moving here.
It's moving intellectually, it's moving emotionally,
and it's moving because it's in process.
At Decaf, the process becomes the product,
as audiences show up to view works in progress.
We have big dreams.
We're in the act of creating something new.
A big part of the process is bringing artists together to learn from each other.
We try to bring in artists from lots of different disciplines
so that they can bounce off of each other
while they're all in the midst of their creative process.
Petri dish of collaboration, it's just a wonderful opportunity
where all these different things are being thrown in and germinating
and making things together, so I love it.
It's a vision born from festival founder, Eric Simonson's own artistic journey.
Jumping from one medium to another, it elicits inspiration.
As an Oscar-winning documentarian,
Emmy nominee, Broadway playwright,
actor, theater, and opera director,
Eric has had a remarkably successful and varied career.
Eric has done so many things.
He's just had a marvelous career.
Decaf is his legacy.
Eric turned to his brother-in-law, UW Green Bay theater professor Alan Kapishke
to help make the Door County Festival a reality.
They have strong family connections to the peninsula.
It's a beautiful play store county.
It's got everything.
We would come up here from the time I can remember.
So when I got older, that tradition continued
and I became a writer and a director
and I found it very conducive to creation.
And I create a kind of sonic experience
that is specific to those of us here in Newark.
I've always wanted the festival to be attractive to just anybody who wanted to come.
Anybody who's interested in being moved,
if that is their passion, we are the answer to their question.
So there's a certain spirit.
It's a spirit Eric hopes will propel Decaf into the future.
We have grand visions.
I think it's important that our serves a purpose and that purpose is
to find what is common in all of us.
If we sit in an audience and look at one another and recognize that,
that's what our aim is here.
Thank you.