Sophia Rising

Next week!
4th Wednesdays!
May 27th, 2026.

Garden Chapel Sanctuary movement & meditation with leader Lizzie Salsich. Free!

Every 4th Wednesday. A Sophia Rising recurring event.

video 1: Flower crown craft party is postponed until June.

video 2: May Day picnic location is shared.
See you Saturday!
May 2, 2026, by Tower Grove farmer’s market. Noon.
Bring your own picnic brunch / lunch.
Bring a ribbon or string to make a wish!
(please come anyway if you don’t have one)

Galhalla 2026:
Meet the musicians!

Lo Ziv (ze / zir)
is the percussionist of Galholler.

It is Lo Ziv’s birthday this weekend! The greatest of birthday gifts would be registering for, or supporting, Galhalla!

Lo Ziv is a songwriter, song circle leader, author, dancer, caller, storyteller, workshop instructor, community organizer, and kooky goofball residing in St. Louis.

Lo Ziv began performing song & dance onstage at the age of three - in a giant tutu, or a sequin-spangled sailor suit! Song & dance has been an integral, consistent, and funnily inescapable part of Lo’s life. It just keeps showing up!

For example, Lo studied vocal performance for 2 years, by invitation, under an opera singer of international renown.
How? The opera singer played the role of Lo’s wife in a production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” found Lo quite funny, and extended the invitation!
(Lo portrayed the lecherous, old, foolish Roman senator, Senex.)

Over the past 40 years, Lo has also played:
-piano
-clarinet
-violin
-saxophone
-guitar
-oud
-cümbüş
-drums
-jaw harp
-irish whistle
-duduk

… to name a few!

Lo came to the contra dance community more than twenty years ago in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Back then, Lo was a modern dancer at a women’s college, and followed some student friends just down the street to the local contra dance.

Lo has been swept up into the national dance community, ever since.

Years ago, as a graduate student of ancient history & dead languages, Lo Ziv felt the deep need to play music more regularly again - in order to counter-balance the stress of an intense degree. Already playing percussion in three “grad chapel” bands within the full-time degree program, Lo simply lugged zir big ole’ drum to some dance events, and fun musicians quickly invited Lo to join them! That first event happened to be LEAF, a large outdoor festival in North Carolina. And professional percussionists from Ghana happened to be Lo’s first West African hand-percussion instructors.

Magical.

Lo Ziv was on staff at the week-long summer camp, Cumberland Dance Week, for about six years. While calling, leading workshops, and playing percussion at Cumberland, fellow dancer Sam Droege introduced Lo to the jaw harp. The jaw harp has become one of Lo’s favorite instruments to play.
Simple, driving, meditative, and full-body.

Over the past 2 decades, Lo Ziv has danced, called, led workshops, and drummed in the contra dance community, from coast to coast!

Lo’s synesthesia manifests as colors, and reverberations in the body. Lo Ziv feels that the rhythm, reverberations, and vibes which flow through the body, and through the dance, are the thrumming strings of joy of the universe. If you hear Lo harping, humming, singing, and drumming, then you’re in the presence of a very happy & contented synesthete!

Lo Ziv is a graduate of a women’s college. That means no one interrupted Lo, in a classroom setting, for FOUR YEARS in a row! That has a big impact upon a person.
Quite the formative experience.

Throughout the decades, Lo has found that intentionally-curated spaces for the gals create opportunities that one simply does not find elsewhere. When the male gaze is entirely absent, for a sustained period of time, then parts of oneself are able to relax, open up, energize, and become free!

Galhalla is a work of joy and love. Lo Ziv can’t wait to be drumming, harping, humming, singing, and dancing with you all, very soon!

Galhalla 2026:
Meet the magic-makers!

Sarah Kaiser (she / her)
is the lead organizer, booker, scheduler, and dreamer of Galhalla.
Without Sarah, Galhalla would not exist!

Sarah grew up in a radio station (sort of), surrounded by the music of the invisible wavelengths. Sarah's career in the performing arts took her all around the country as a dance instructor, bass player, singer, and historian. She's even published in a professional journal about historical French dance!

A lifelong dancer, swinging and waltzing atop her grandfather's shoes, Sarah has been part of the contra dance community for more than a decade.

Sarah not only regularly hosts community gatherings in her home, organizes Galhalla, runs STL Q***r Contra, and serves on the board of the weekly St. Louis contra dance scene …
She also is a master chef, skilled archer, exquisite milliner, and bottles a MEAN pickle.

Sarah gives so generously of her time, planning, and skills because Galhalla is important. Women's spaces are essential, especially now. Peace, joy, safety, and PARTYING are not just for the elite, the privileged, and the wealthy. Cultivating and creating a safehaven for the femmes and themmes is an act of both love and resistance.

She dreamed, schemed, and worked to make Galhalla THE most affordable urban contra dance weekend in North America.

And, it is!

When you see Sarah at Galhalla, you are in the presence of the enthantress of makes it all happen. And it brings her so much joy to see you happy, safe, and smiling on the dance floor!