10/10/11

Story by Diane Carroll

Bella Gaia

'Bella Gaia' captures Earth's beauty through eyes of astronauts

Have you ever wanted to study certain Earthly phenomena from space? Get your chance when you attend Bella Gaia (Beautiful Earth), sponsored by the Performing Arts Series and the JCCC Student Sustainability Committee, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in Yardley Hall.

Described as a “living atlas,” Bella Gaia is a multimedia journey of our world that captures the deeply moving beauty of planet Earth as seen through the eyes of astronauts. Created by award-winning director and classically trained violinist Kenji Williams in collaboration with NASA, Bella Gaia features live performances by Williams and world music artists against a large-screen backdrop of Earth from space.

Tickets, which are $30 and $20, are available through the college box office at 913-469-4445 or at jccc.edu/The Series.

The goal of Bella Gaia is to bring together the power of art, technology and space science into a context that is both entertaining and educational. Bella Gaia actually visually displays how humans are affecting the planet – from fires in the Amazon basin to time-lapse images of the Arctic ice melt – and how each element affects the other. As they watch the 70-minute film, the audience understands the delicate interconnected balance of our planet, and hopefully, become committed to saving the Earth from the effects of pollution, climate change and the rising human population.

Multicultural experiences are also part of Bella Gaia through photos of sites on Earth such as Hindu temples, Shinto shrines and Egyptian pyramids. 

Bella Gaia has been featured at top festivals such as the Smithsonian Folklore/NASA festival, 13 NASA events, COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, The Economist Magazine’s “World in 2011” conference, and to sold-out shows at digital planetariums. Bella Gaia has delighted audiences from Europe to the United States to Japan, and has proven to engage a wide demographic from 3-year-olds to students to heads of government agencies.

“Bella Gaia is just beautiful. It really felt like I was back in space, ”said Piers Sellers, NASA astronaut, Spacewalker (STS-112 Atlantis, STS 121 Discovery).

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