TFest describes itself ‘For the bold – For the Open-Minded – For the Grateful Heart – For the Authentic Spirit – For the Future. Let’s make Tfest unforgettable and enjoy the journey’.
Many of the 520 participants at TFest 2023 who are first-timers would surely agree that they might not have thought they were bold before arriving at FAIRMONT MAYAKOBA on Sunday 7th May. They soon, however, realised they needed to think differently. TFest is hard work, and it’s also intensive playful personal learning. This is what the show’s MD, Christy Kuplic wants, a balance of recognisable commercial worth and the individual joy of self exploration.
TFest’s programme is hard-hard 1-2-1 morning meetings, twelves minutes and clear video screens and thoughtful music remind you when to move on. Afternoons are Pathways of self-discovery. Choose whatever, and expect to be challenged, and to learn.
To take one example. This, above, is what Girlahead looks like, according to Israeli sculptor and caricaturist Moral Turgeman. In under one minute she did this sketch, looking at and talking to, the subject and without once glancing down at the paper. She did all 15 in this Pathway class, one by one and out of sight of others. All the caricatures will be included in a Moral Turgeman collage, 10,000 faces, for a future exhibition in Miami (her 1,000 Tree of Life flags, shown at FAENO during Art Basel Miami 2022, were sponsored by St Germain elderflower liqueur).
This particular three-hour pathway, organised by JOALI and JOALI BEING’s brilliantly-creative Samiha Askin, also starred breath yogi Agathe Fay, obviously and not surprisingly a Bali legend. Here, backed by two hypnotic musicians who played a variety of alternative instruments, she had everyone lie on towels on yoga mats on the cooling marbled floor of a Fairmont Pool Villa. Wearing Joali’s soothing lavender eye-masks it was impossible to see anything. Hearing came to the forefront as the group listened and breathed, in and out, with three fore-announced long breath holds. Pulled by the music, some cried unashamedly. Afterwards the reaction was simultaneously exhausted and invigorated…MORE TO COME
