Now in its 11th season, JAD Experience continues presenting unique, transformative gatherings. The farm-to-table dinner and dance world premiere take place on two weekends this month at Tara Firma Farms in Petaluma.
A meal with meat served in a cattle pasture followed by a performance of exquisite, professionally trained classical and contemporary ballet dancers on an open-platform stage under the stars might seem improbable or unbelievable.
But they’re real, evolving from a collaboration between JAD Experience founders Aaron Lucich, a producer, farmer-rancher and agricultural activist, and Julia Adam, a former San Francisco Ballet principal and renowned choreographer.
Sharing a passion for the land and seeing ancestral wisdom as a cornerstone for living, the married couple is dedicated to lifting human and animal dignity.
This year’s JAD Experience is called “Viscerālis.” Translated from Spanish to English, the word is “visceral,” referring to the body’s internal organs, and to deeply instinctive human intelligence. Life in the 21st century, Lucich says, turns increasingly to technology for connection and stability.
As the digital era feeds into society’s attraction to pursuing one-factor solutions to social ills (such as poor physical and mental health, isolation, and lifestyles lacking in sensory stimulation), the best countermeasures are not pills and prescriptions.
JAD Experience instead offers participants the chance to: hold a handful of soil where the food they’re being served was grown, to place their feet near a dried-up manure pile, smell its mild richness and eat the meat of cattle that left it. Watching the kinetic energy of the dancers in motion or taking in the beauty of still bodies at rest layers on additional truths.
Communing at a table during the four-and-a-half-hour experience, guests also take a brief tour of the area near the barn at Tara Firma Farms in Petaluma.
The multi-course feast, served family-style, is a “nose-to-tail culinary adventure” (with alternatives for vegetarians and vegans) from local purveyors including Tara Firma Farms, Umbel Roots, Feed Sonoma, True Grass Farms, Holistic Ag, and others. There also are wines from Enkidu and Shokrian Vineyard, beer from Hen House and Moonlight, and house-made non-alcoholic drinks.
After dinner, as participants clutch mugs of chocolate or bone broth, Adam’s storytelling dance (with spoken word, songs and fourth wall-breaking interactions) is presented.
It is common for people who arrive as strangers to depart as uniquely bonded members of a tribe. Embraced in a wellspring-generated community, some guests have burst into tears and, at evening’s end, wander as if in a daze to their cars.
“We wonder what will happen,” said Lucich. “It’s going to take them a while to figure out what just happened, because it’s an immersive, complete experience coming from a connection to the environment, to their selves, to a culinary journey and movement. It’s hunter-gatherer. I don’t see struggle, because there’s connection to our place on the planet. We eat a lot of meat, although we do vegan also, and we commune and connect to each other in a primal way. It’s more sophisticated than we are now. I say we need visceral (not virtual) reality. We need actual, not artificial intelligence.”
Among what prompted Lucich and Adam to create JAD was the impending birth of their daughter 22 years ago, and the beneficial principles and practices of holistically managed, pasture based livestock Lucich learned from friend and mentor Allan Savory, a pioneer in the field of alternative agriculture.
Lucich, formerly an actor and communications specialist with clients such as Netflix and MSNBC, founded Holistic Ag in 2012. He also has managed farms and served as a consultant in locations worldwide.
“We started calling it JAD, Julia and Aaron’s Dream. It’s corny, but it’s OK. We birthed it because I went into a crisis when I found out we were having a child. I was 49 and Julia was 36. I became obsessed with, ‘What am I doing about this child’s future?’ I made a documentary about agriculture and went down the rabbit hole. And then Julia, eight or so years into that, followed me after, saying she wasn’t inspired by the concert hall and wanted to bring dance into the environment,” said Lucich.
Seeing the need for people to see fields grazed by cattle, and how land allowed to remain fallow restores itself, Lucich and Adams are promoting greater environmental knowledge.
It’s important understand is how the human gut biome is destroyed by eating over-processed food that Lucich calls “horrible and fake,” and to experience how closer connections to nature and inner selves offer revelation and rejuvenation.
Artists are uniquely positioned to tell these stories: “Artists are the only ones who deal in that trade of taking ingredients and turning them into a contextual form we can grab onto. That’s not coming from politicians (who don’t speak from their experiences) or scientists who spend their time alone in dark labs. We eat, convene, then tell stories at the fire. Artists are journeymen who connect the dots. Go back to the Greeks: that was church. Our job is to create magic in dark rooms. If we had more art and acknowledged its ability to settle us, we’d have less need for therapy, less SSRIs,” said Lucich.
JAD Experience presents “Viscerālis” from 5:30 to 10 p.m. July 12-14 and July 19-21 at Tara Firma Farms, 3796 I St., Petaluma. Tickets are $200-$300 at JADexperience.com.
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