At first glance, Dana Williams’ journey from elite Canadian skier to real estate agent at Alain Pinel in Mill Valley looks a bit circuitous.

But further examination shows it to be straightforward – often at blindingly fast speeds.

Williams, who opened in downtown Mill Valley in 2016, has lived an inarguably exciting life on his way to Mill Valley, where he’s lived for nearly a decade.

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada, Williams was a competitive downhill skiier at a young age and successful enough that when he graduated high school, he followed the path of his former coaches and moved to Whistler, British Columbia to race for a year.

“It went better than planned, I guess,” Williams says with nonchalance, with one year turning into several, and more friends from Nova Scotia joining him in Whistler. Williams moved up to the British Columbia Provincial Ski Team, where he stayed for two years before moving up to the Canadian alpine ski team, racing in major events like the Canadian National Ski Championships and the Whistler World Cup.

As the Canadian team marched toward the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, Williams was forced to watch on crutches after he tore his right ACL on a training run. He did so again twice more, including a warmup run on the Olympic course in Salt Lake City, Utah, in advance of the 2002 Winter Olympics there.

“It sure was disappointing at the time, but it all was an incredibly memorable, rewarding experience,” says Williams, who quit ski racing in 2000 and went to Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., where he studied marketing and entrepreneurial management. During that time, Williams ran his own ski camp with his brother in Whistler, and served as the coach for the Canadian Paralympic ski team from 2004 to 2006.

Williams had also been working for a Scottish company that created customized golfing trips, and he used that experience to launch his own business, Best of Both Golf & Ski, in 2006. The company operated high-end, custom trips that incorporated both skiing and golf and were guided by professional golfers and skiers – sort of like what Sausalito-based In Gamba has done with cycling trips. Williams ran it for six years, building it up to 15 destinations.
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During that time, Williams met his future wife, Kristin Wingfield, a fellow Canadian who has lived in the Bay Area since 2003 and has her own sports medicine practice in Marin. Williams moved to the Bay Area in 2008, and the couple has three young sons.

With young kids, Williams grew tired of being on the road all the time for his business, and he naturally gravitated to the sport that he had taken to in his post-injury years: cycling. He’d bought himself a road bike after he quit skiing in 2000 and had been passionate about it ever since, developing into a Category 2 cyclist and currently racing with the Mike’s Bikes Masters team.

Williams has proven to be as successful in cycling as he was in skiing. He won the acclaimed San Rafael Criterium in 2015 in the Men’s 35+ Cat 1/2/3 race, and finished second last year. In 2015, he won the USA Cycling Nationship Championship in Ogden, Utah in the Master Criterium race.

With that passion, and his desire to be in town more, Williams in 2013 started his own cycling coaching business – Achieve Performance Training and Coaching – with two other coaches joining him to do personal training but primarily cycling coaching. That business remains active and steady, and Williams decided to dive into the real estate business in 2016.

He did so with Alain Pinel because of “their outstanding training program,” he says, noting that his years in the Bay Area as a resident, a cyclist and the owner of Best of Both Golf & Ski have all allowed him to build a vast network of friends and future clients.
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“It’s a great network to draw from,” he says.

Williams knows the Marin real estate market is a fickle one, with sophisticated buyers and sellers and an abundance of agents to choose from. He says that having running his own business, he has the “entrepreneurial experience, the attention to detail and the ability to communicate with a wide range of people to deliver a high rate of service,” he says. “I really enjoy the personal connection – and I’m a people person for sure.”

The 411: Dana Williams is based out of Compass' downtown Mill Valley office at 32 Miller Avenue. MORE INFO.

Renowned artist Claudia Chapline has said that Bolinas artist Carol Duchamp’s work “is like a jazz riff on a melody of color that starts with a single long stroke. Sensitive to the energy of the moment, she follows the cues of the colors’ movements with spontaneity. Abstract expressionism hasn’t been this happy since Sam Francis!”

If you’re in the mood to “clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth,” you won’t find a better place to do so than the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center (85 Throckmorton Ave.), where Duchamp will be showcasing her boldly colored “Poetics of the Invisible” work throughout April, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on April 4, 6-8pm (GO HERE for a full list of artists and venues).

Duchamp, a Midwest native who migrated to Berkeley via France and New York City in the late 1970s1976 and has lived in Bolinas since 1980, has been exhibiting her paintings in the Bay Area in 1993.  

Best known for her vibrant colors and fluid abstract compositions in the mediums of acrylic and watercolor, Duchamp says her paintings are “an aesthetic exploration of color, space and fluidity.”

“They are rich in color, lushly saturated, sensual in form, and have been described as ‘cosmic, flowing and full of light,’” she adds.

Duchamp describes painting in her studio as “a bit like a trance dance,” and when she returns to the studio the next day, she tried to comprehend “the state of being, the inspiration that embedded itself in the painting the day before,” she says. “I can see clearly that the feeling tone of an experience, whether a trail walk through the redwoods on Mt. Tamalpais near where I live or a sense memory of drift snorkeling in French Polynesia or a feeling of sadness/loss/maybe anger has made its way into the painting and graced it with meaning and the promise of intimacy with what is.”

Duchamp has been teaching outdoor painting classes in the U.S. and abroad for 20 years, encouraging experimentation and self-discovery in a supportive environment that nourishes the intuitive power of self-expression.

Duchamp is founder and director of Art Trek, which orchestrates travel study art classes to destinations such as France, French Polynesia, Italy, the American Southwest and Bali and Java, Indonesia.
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The 411: Bolinas artist Carol Duchamp shows her “Poetics of the Invisible” work throughout April, with a wine reception set for the Mill Valley Arts Commission’s First Tuesday Artwalk on April 4, 6-8pm (GO HERE for a full list of artists and venues). ​

Mill Valley is home to some of the best arts and crafts shops in the Bay Area, and Bay Area A-List, a website that allows users to nominate and vote on the best among an array of business categories, has recognized one of them, naming Beads of Marin on Locust Ave. as the Best Arts & Crafts shop on its 2017 list. The contest drew 24,000 votes on more than 3,400 nominees, with 121 winners chosen. 

"Though we have been finalists several times, this is our first First Place win," says Beads of Marin owner Batel Libes. "We're so excited!"

Beads of Marin and its space at 8 Locust Ave. have a long and storied history in Mill Valley. According to the Mill Valley Historical Society, the space itself was once home to Brothers Tavern, widely known as "The Brothers," and acclaimed for its, well, colorful history. Libes says people still stop into her shop once a week to share juicy stories about the old days in the space.

In 2002, Libes needed to buy beads for a lariat she was designing and decided to check out Beads of Marin, which had been on Locust since 1994 and was well known for its large collection of quality beads. A “Store for Sale” sign on the front window got her attention, and Libes took the leap of a lifetime: she bought the store and never looked back.

Libes says the shop has a "most eclectic" collection of beads, including glass, wood, horn, bone, stone, coral, turquoise, pearls and more. Specializing in high-end gems, the shop carries more than 80 chains in sterling silver and 60 in gold fill, along with over 40 base metal chains.

"We serve the beading community with honesty and integrity, offering a place for all to come and be welcomed, learn and create in a friendly environment that is supportive and encourages creativity," Libes says.

The 411: ​Beads of Marin is at 8 Locust Avenue. MORE INFO.

The venerable Mountain Play turns 104 this year with a production of the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, but its organizers are taking the time this summer to celebrate the year it was a spry 54.

In addition to its Jay Manley-directed production of Beauty and the Beast,  the Mountain Play will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, specifically the landmark Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, which drew at least 36,000 people to the Mountain Play's home Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre on June 10-11, 1967. That event, which pre-dated the Monterey International Pop Festival and Woodstock, featured performances from The Doors, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Hugh Masekela, Canned Heat, Dionne Warwick, Country Joe and the Fish and many more.

To mark the occasion, the Mountain Play is putting on its own Magic Mountain Play Music Festival, featuring a cadre of live bands and a concert version of the rock musical Hair, which tells tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against the Vietnam War.

The June 10th performance is part of a Marin-wide celebration of the Summer of Love, including the Marin County Fair and Italian Street Painting Marin, both of which are built around the Summer of Love theme this year.

While the Summer of Love celebration is certainly timely, the Mountain Play's production of Beauty and the Beast seems perfectly timed, particularly since the Disney live action film of the same name has earned more than $500 million globally in just its first two weeks.

Based on the Academy Award-winning animated feature, the stage version of Beauty and the Beast is built around songs written by Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman along with new songs by Menken and Tim Rice. The original Broadway production ran for more than 13 years and was nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The play tells the saga of Belle, a young woman from a small village, and the Beast, who is really a young prince trapped under the spell of an enchantress. 

The 411: The Mountain Play's production of Beauty and the Beast runs on Sundays from May 21-June 18. MORE INFO & TIX. The Magic Mountain Play Music Festival is on Saturday, June 10. MORE INFO & TIX. Save $5 off general admission with the Early Bird Discount by going here until March 31.

What do the likes of Two Neat owner Bob Bijou and Marin Theatre Company Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis have in common with rock legends Sammy Hagar and Bob Weir? They've all won Milley Awards for Creative Achievement, the annual honor doled out to locals for their contributions to literary arts, visual arts and performing arts (film, theater and dance), as well as contributions to the artistic community.

The 12-member Milley Awards Board of Directors is now seeking nominations for its 2017 edition. You can pick up a nomination form at City Hall, the Mill Valley Library, the Community Center, the Chamber of Commerce and at The Depot Bookstore, All Wrapped Up, O'Hanlon Center for the Arts, and Seager Gray Gallery. Nominations remain in force for three years, and can be renewed and improved.

The submission deadline is April 17. Judging by a panel of judges from the community will take place in late May. Awardees will be announced in early summer, and the awards will be given at 23rd Annual Milley Awards gala dinner ceremony on October 22 at the Mill Valley Community Center. The Milley Awards are sponsored by the Mill Valley Art Commission.

In addition to the nomination norm, you must submit supporting documentation such as letters of recommendation and news articles. Need help with your nomination? Contact Abby Wasserman at 415-381-3561or abby.wasserman@gmail.com, or Joe Angiulo at 415-388-8137 or gailnjoe@yahoo.com.

Judging by a panel of representatives from the community will take place in May, with winners announced in July. The annual Milleys Dinner will be held October 22 at the Mill Valley Community Center. Over the previous 22 years, the Milley Awards have recognized the creative achievements of 140 individuals and organizations.

Whether they catch a glimpse of flowers on a residential hillside on an morning walk or hear through the grapevine that a neighbor has a stunning display of their gardening prowess, lovers of amazing gardens are often left wondering about the amazing creations just outside their field of view.
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For those people, the event of the year is coming up next month.

The Outdoor Art Club’s biennial Garden Tour is set for Thursday, April 27, from 9am-4pm. This year’s theme is “The Secret Gardens of Mill Valley,” and organizers are promising a dandy of a tour across six gardens, from the fruit trees and sustainability efforts of “Pooh Bear's Paradise” to the hidden scultpures and heart stones lining the paths of “Paradise Achieved.” Shuttles depart the OAC’s historic Bernard Maybeck-designed clubhouse at One West Blithedale Ave. from 9am to 2:30pm. All gardens close at 4pm.

The Garden Tour serves as the OAC’s major fundraiser, with proceeds going to both preserve the clubhouse and pay for grants to an array of Marin County nonprofits, with nearly $400,000 going to Marin organizations over the past 20 years. That includes the OAC’s issuance in 2016 of an $11,000 grant to the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center's Enjoy Mill Valley Fund to renovate the downtown clock tower at the northwest corner of Throckmorton and Miller avenues. The clock has since been restored.

In addition to the OAC’s Curried Chicken Salad lunch (or vegetarian alternative) at the clubhouse from 11am-2pm, a number of local restaurants will be offering discounts to Garden Tour participants that day, including Piazza D’Angelo, Balboa Cafe, Prabh Indian Kitchen, Boo Koo and more. Info on participating restaurants and discounts will be distributed at the OAC on the day of the tour.

The 411: Tickets for the Outdoor Art Club’s 2017 Garden Tour are $45 in advance until April 25 at 5pm, and $55 at the door. Lunch at the OAC is $15. The OAC clubhouse is at One West Blithedale. MORE INFO & TIX.

Many local business owners have taken circuitous routes to Mill Valley, but few can match that of Got Vitamin B12 founder and naturopathic physician Shannon Wood-Gallegos – she’s been around the world and back.

After getting a degree in biological sciences and a master’s in nutrition and food science from California State University, Chico, the Ukiah native spent a year traveling around the United States visiting every Major League Baseball stadium in what calls “one of the best years of my life.” She then became a flight attendant for United Airlines out of New York City, flying the friendly skies across the globe for more than three years.

Wood-Gallegos continued her medical training at Bastyr University, where she graduated as a Naturopathic Physician in 2005. She also completed the Naturopathic Midwifery program there and has since assisted in hundreds of births, including serving as a midwife in a local hospital on the island of Vanuatu.

She then opened her own practice in the Seattle, Washington area, focusing on midwifery and postpartum care for new moms for three years before she was recruited to be the medical director for a wellness facility funded by a trio of Microsoft executives, managing the business side of the facility.

“That was a really great experience for me, because until that I’d had very little business training, and running your practice as a business is critical,” says Wood-Gallegos says, who moved to Mill Valley with her husband Armando and three young children in 2014. “Not a lot of medical practitioners know how to present their business and do marketing and outside sales.”

When she moved to the Bay Area to be closer to her family in Ukiah, Wood-Gallegos was hired by an herbal supplement firm as their medical educator, lecturing at conferences around the country. While doing so, she opened her own naturopathic practice in San Francisco’s Mission district, starting at 1-2 days per week and expanding it over time.

That’s when the vitamin B12 light bulb happened.

Wood-Gallegos had been providing vitamin B12 injections to her midwifery clients in Seattle for years – “it was a good way to give my mommies a much-needed boost,” she says – and she started hearing from Bay Area clients that there was quite a bit of demand for the vitamin.

According to the National Institute for Health, Vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in some foods, added to others, and available as a dietary supplement and a prescription medication. A deficiency of Vitamin B12 is characterized by anemia, fatigue, weakness, constipation, loss of appetite, and weight loss, and a study by the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University found that as much as 40 percent of the population could have such a deficiency.

Wood-Gallegos started hosting “B12 Happy Hour” events at her San Francisco practice, and the response was off the charts, with 50-60 people showing in a 2-3 hour period – so much so that it has become its own business. The couple has opened “happy hour” locations at 7 offices around the Bay Area, with an eighth on the way. That includes the space on Evergreen, which they opened in late 2016.

“It’s just done incredibly well,” Wood-Gallegos says, noting that she’s thrilled to live and work in Mill Valley, which she calls similar to her hometown of Ukiah in many ways. “There’s a great sense of community here that doesn’t exist in many places,” she says.

With a increasingly popular service, the couple drew on Wood-Gallegos’ experience running her own practice, and came up with, perhaps, the secret sauce, so to speak. They’ve been leasing medical offices on days and times when the practitioner is not open, a smart business model that is mutually beneficial for both lessor and lessee in terms of getting new patients, Wood-Gallegos says.

But in her own practice or with Got Vitamin B12, Wood-Gallegos continues to emphasize what she learned in her academic studies many years ago: “Our philosophy is very different from most in that we look at the whole person, particularly diet, lifestyle, and determine how we can treat people instead of just throwing medications at symptoms. It’s been a great journey so far, and I’m excited with where we’re at.”

The 411: Got Vitamin B12 is at 25 Evergreen Ave. with happy hours on Tuesday and Thursday. MORE INFO.

Real estate firm Vanguard Properties announced this week that it is producing an inaugural Marin Design Awards ceremony on May 18, and that Nadine Storyk Curtis, owner of 7 on Locust, the Mill Valley boutique laden with unique home decor, art, rock 'n roll photography, clothing and jewelry, will be one of the event's honorees.

The awards show is set for Thursday, May 18, 6-8pm, at the Mill Valley Community Center. "It is important that we recognize the contributions these luminaries have made to the Marin Design Community," says Vanguard's Kevin Patsel. "Each has added significantly in their own way to their respective categories and it's appropriate that we take a moment to honor their work." 

In addition to Curtis, who in 2015 co-founded the Mill Valley Design District to celebrate the confluence of innovative, design-focused businesses on and around Miller Avenue, the Marin Design Awards will also honor:

• Architecture: Jared Polsky, Polsky Perlstein Architects
• Interior Design: Robert Federighi, Robert Federighi Design
• Landscape Design: Michael Yandle, Michael B. Yandle Landscape Architecture
• Home Decor: Monelle Totah and Gary McNatton, Hudson Grace
• Floral: Jennifer Brant, Green Bouquet Floral Design

Pastel says the event will also include additional honorees in the categories of Architecture, Interior Design, Landscape Design, Home Decor, Floral and Fashion. Those nominees will be announced in April. Nominees based in Marin County are considered on the body of their work, creativity, innovation and their contributions to the design community in Marin. Winners will be announced in each category.

With the Marin Design Awards, Vanguard seeks to "bring together the Marin design community, as well as all those who appreciate the importance of good design in our everyday lives," says Patsel, noting that the evening will be a celebration of design in Marin County, featuring food/drink, a fashion show and an awards presentation.    
  
Tickets are $50, with proceeds going to Home for a Home, a local non-profit that partners with other organizations in Guatemala to construct simple, yet solid homes for families lacking adequate housing. MORE INFO & TIX.

Mr. E. Bunny arrives in Mill Valley on Saturday, April 1, for one of the most popular spring events in town: the Spring Eggstravaganza and Bunny Breakfast.

The Mill Valley Recreation event kicks off at 8:30am with the Bunny Breakfast, with kids having breakfast and getting their photos taken with Mr. E. Bunny before they all head to Friends Field for the annual Egg Hunt, “searching for surprises left in the grass by that rascally rabbit and his friends.”

Mr. E. Bunny starts each hunt: 10am for ages 2 and under, and 10:15am for ages 3-4 and ages 5-8, three separate hunts at two different times to help the morning flow smoothly. Don’t forget to look for the “golden eggs” that hold special surprises for their finders. The Mill Valley Seniors’ Club and Whole Foods Market sponsor the event, allowing the Egg Hunt to be free for all attendees.

Dating back more than 25 years, the City’s annual Spring Egg Hunt has become “a cultural touchstone for Mill Valley families,” says Mill Valley Recreation Director Jenny Rogers.

Between the breakfast and the egg hunt, City officials estimate that 1,000 children and adults regularly attend the event, which doles out an average of more than 5,000 eggs. The event was first held as the Spring Egg Hunt on the field behind the old recreation center, and then on Bayfront Park. In 2005, it morphed and expanded into the Eggstravaganza and Bunny Breakfast at the Community Center and on Friends Field, including jumpees, a train, live music and face painting.

Tickets for the Bunny Breakfast are available now at the Community Center & Aquatics/Fitness Center at 180 Camino Alto. Adults: $6, Children: $4 (2yrs. and under are free). No tickets are required for the Egg Hunt – just bring a basket or bag to collect your eggs in.

Filmmaker Jeffrey Brown has had a storied career, directing episodes of The Wonder Years and L.A. Law and winning an Academy Award in 1986 for his film Molly's Pilgrim.

But no project Brown's helmed has drawn as much acclaim – and sparked a subsequent movement – as Sold. The 2014 film, based on Patricia McCormick's novel of the same name, tells the story of Lakshmi who is the victim of human trafficking, a saga that takes her from a rural village in Nepal to a brothel called Happiness House in India. Lakshmi risks everything for freedom, and Brown used the tale to give voice to 1.8 million children who are trafficked every year into sexual slavery. Human trafficking is happening now in every community, country and continent and yet is invisible.

Brown, just back from a visit with Pope Francis, will discuss Sold on Thursday, March 30 at 1pm at the Outdoor Art Club, One West Blithedale, Mill Valley. Free. Light refreshments will be served. Here's the trailer for Sold:

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Jenny Fulle has had a long, storied Hollywood career, starting as a janitor at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic in 1980 at the age of 18 and growing into a visual effects producer and executive producer on massive hits like Spider-Man 1, 2, and 3, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Chronicles of Narnia, and continuing on with the Creative-Cartel, her own visual effects and animation house in Los Angeles.

But for one afternoon last Saturday, Fulle was a Mill Valley Little Leaguer again, an accomplishment she fought very hard for 45 years ago and one that made her an icon to the girls that have followed in her path as the pioneering female player in Mill Valley Little League.

To mark the anniversary, Fulle was honored at the 64th Annual MVLL Opening Day parade and a subsequent ceremony at Boyle Park, where she caught the Opening Day first pitch from a Challenger League player and had a plaque installed in her honor. Mill Valley Mayor Jessica Sloan was on hand to recognize Fulle's achievement as well.

As a 9-year-old girl, Fulle so badly wanted to play baseball that she tucked her hair under her baseball cap and went to play for MVLL, but was turned away due to a prohibition against girls playing in Little League. A turbulent one-year battle followed involving the City of Mill Valley, the National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, and Fulle was eventually allowed to play in Little League but just as she was about to reach its age limit.

“I’m very proud of it now,” Fulle said of being honored at the Opening Day ceremony in front of "more than 700 registered Mill Valley Little League players — 24 of them girls," according to the Marin Independent Journal. “It definitely — it’s thickened my skin at a young age to a certain extent. I look back at it now and I think it was a major accomplishment. I also look back and think my life peaked at age 12. How do I surpass that?”

Lisa Kift, a Mill Valley Little League board member who took the photos above, told the Marin IJ that Fulle’s fight paved the way for her, as she joined MVLL just five years after Fulle played.

“She blazed a trail for me and other girls to be able to play Little League baseball,” Kift told the IJ. “I was a tomboy and at that time I was pretty athletic and enjoyed playing sports and playing with boys. For me it was natural to play with boys.”

The acclaim for Fulle continues next month as the Mill Valley Historical Society hosts "Reflections on Making Little League History," a panel discussion featuring Fulle, former Mill Valley Parks and Recreation Commissioner Ed Addeo, and award-winning mediation attorney Lee Hunt. The event is set for Wednesday, April 5 at 7pm at the Mill Valley Public Library. Registration recommended. Click here to register.

Premiere Aviation, which provides jet aircraft charter flights and leasing in the Bay Area and beyond, took the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center staff on a smooth, thrilling flight over Mill Valley, southern Marin, Angel Island, the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and out to a raging Alamere Falls at the Point Reyes National Seashore. ​The photos from Kirke Wrench and the video below put you on board with us for a magical day above our gorgeous stomping grounds! Enjoy.
MORE INFO ABOUT PREMIERE AVIATION.

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“Immersive” is an adjective you’ll find in many, if not most, descriptions of  summer camps for kids in Marin and throughout the Bay Area.

But few can promise the kind of immersion that Marin GreenPlay Camp delivers. That is, a field trip-based, complete immersion in the natural environment of Marin and the North Bay. Marin Green Play Camp founder Julie Hanft puts it succinctly: “The green meadows, rocky shorelines, pristine beaches, lovely lagoons, shady creeks, sandy deserts and mountain trails of California are our playground.”

Hanft knows how to achieve this level of immersion, because she did it for herself when she relocated from Miami to Mill Valley with her family a decade ago. A graduate of Barnard College and the University of Miami Law School, Hanft has worked as a federal law clerk and commercial litigator in her career. Before their move, she’d made great strides in connecting her then-four-year-old son with nature, and continuing those efforts – and expanding upon them – was a huge priority for her when they arrived in Mill Valley in 2006.

She had much more than weekend hikes on Mount Tam in mind, however.

Hanft found out about and enrolled in College of Marin’s Natural History program, learning every aspect of the natural history of the Bay Area, in class and on field trips, from “experts who have been here for years and know this place like the back of their hand,” says Hanft, who now has certificates in Natural History and in Environmental Science from the College of Marin and a certificate in Sustainable Practices from Dominican University and has graduated from the Environmental Forum of Marin.

One of Hanft’s biggest takeaways from her academic pursuits in Marin has been the ability see the larger environmental thread here. The heavy emphasis on specialization within scientific research over the past half century has made it less popular to be a generalist, she says.

“Fewer people knowing enough about a lot of things has been to the detriment to science, because what ends up lost is the whole system view of the ecosystems,” she says. “When you silo yourself, you do so to the detriment of your view of the whole ecosystem.”

In the summer of 2008, Hanft took a job at Tree Frog Treks, an acclaimed nature camp based in San Francisco. That experience showed Hanft how something similar that was specific to Marin could be sustainable and valuable for kids. She also drew on stories about Elizabeth Terwilliger, Mill Valley’s beloved, straw hat-wearing naturalist and environmental educator who was known as “Mrs. T” and was a local institution until she passed away in 2006.

“We’ve really tried to carry on some of the things she would say and do,” Hanft says. “'We should leave the places that we visit better than we found them' was one of them. That’s a hallmark of our camps.”

Hanft puts that mantra into action, incorporating an age-appropriate service project into every week of Marin GreenPlay Camp, which is divided into two age groups: kindergarten through second grade and third grade through sixth grade. For instance, if the camp visits Bayfront Park, she’ll partner up with the City of Mill Valley to have kids do some weeding in the area, or work with Marin County Parks on a service project in conjunction with a rock climbing outing (the only week-long rock climbing camp in Marin, for grades 3-12) at Ring Mountain. In 2016, Marin GreenPlay participants helped the Mill Valley Library maintain its SmartGarden, a demonstration garden that teaches the importance of native plants and the necessity of water management.

At each destination, Hanft connects campers with people who act as the stewards of the places they visit – “local people who live here who are deeply involved,” she says.

The aforementioned activities will sound familiar to Hanft’s former students at Greenwood School, where she was the Nature/Environmental Studies (NEST) teacher for several years. During that stint, Hanft launched the school’s “Minutes for Mill Valley” fundraiser, in which Greenwood parents and families would sponsor students 15 cents a minute on a variety of projects to raise money to bring the Spirit of Uganda music dance troupe back to Mill Valley as part of its biannual fundraising tour.

The program had students turning the marsh on the Goodman Building Supply property near Hwy. 101 into a real-life environmental laboratory, and removing invasive blackberry plants on Horse Hill and weeding common areas of the Community Garden with so much success that it received a Proclamation from the Mill Valley City Council.

Each week of Marin GreenPlay Camp centers on an ecosystem, from ocean and bayfront to forests and creeks. Campers learn about the plants and animals that live within that ecosystem. “It goes from little kids looking at Old Mill Park the way they would for their age to older kids doing research projects on the creeks,” Hanft says. “There’s this whole continuum of learning and activity for each age group, from purely observational to observing and drawing conclusions.”

Given how much Hanft has immersed herself into Mill Valley and its environment, it’s no surprise that she keeps up on current events, and passes on that knowledge in an age-appropriate way to her campers. For instance, with the City’s Steps, Lanes and Paths getting plenty of headlines over the past year, Hanft plans to educate kids about “the wonders of the Steps, Lanes and Paths so that they’ll want to use them and cherish them when they get older.”

The 411: Marin GreenPlay Camp runs from June 12 through August 25. In May, Hanft offers a Youth Leaders program. MORE INFO & SIGN UP.

With a series of shows this weekend (March 10-12), Mill Valley Philharmonic is looking to transport music lovers to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889, the spectacular event that showcased the newly constructed Eiffel Tower, commemorated the centennial of the storming of the Bastille and celebrated of France’s creativity, strength and pride.

But with its East meets West at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair performances, the Philharmonic is doing so in a very specific way, focusing on the Exposition Universelle's display from Java, particularly the Javanese gamelan music that used instruments like gongs, bells, drums, bamboo flutes, metallophone and many others. Javanese gamelan has been passed down by oral tradition for well over a thousand years and forms an important part of the religious and social life there.
 
Philharmonic officials say that Debussy and Ravel were especially taken by Javanese gamelan's fresh timbres, scales, textures and layers, while "Debussy was astonished that another highly sophisticated and complex music had developed independently from the Western classical tradition." He wrote, “Javanese music obeys laws of counterpoint that make Palestrina seem like child’s play.” Ravel was also inspired by the deep layering of sound, and as the master of orchestration and sound production, he incorporated gamelan sounds into his music.
 
Gamelan music had a major influence on American composers Lou Harrison, whose "lustrous, path-breaking body of work" is being celebrated by "the invaluable Bay Area new music organization OtherMinds" with several shows under the program “Just 100: Homage to Lou Harrison,” including the MV Philharmonic's performances. Harrison’s work, Seven Pastorales, recreates Javanese gamelan sound using Western orchestral instruments.
 
MV Philharmonic Director Lauri Cohen will conduct the Seven Pastorales portion of the program, which also includes Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s Bamboo Tingklik Ensemble, Claude Debussy: Pagodes (David Gordon, conductor), Maurice Ravel: Ma Mère l’lye, Béla Bartók: from the Island of Bali & String Quartet IV and Camille Saint-Saëns: Suite Algérienne.

The 411: Mill Valley Philharmonic performs "East meets West at the 1889 Paris World's Fair on March 10 (8pm) and March 11 (4pm) at the Mt. Tam United Methodist Church, 410 Sycamore Ave., as well March 12 (2pm) at Angelico Hall, Dominican University of California, 50 Acacia Avenue. Free. Walk-in seating. MORE INFO.