Music and Dance
 

Solara Zakeli Vayanian came to Sedona in 1978. She recalls that her family came through town when she was three and again when she was twelve. Her husband came with her on a vacation in the early 70's.

At the time both were involved with theater in San Diego. They loved this area but didn't think they could come to live here. Nevertheless, in December 1977, Solara heard a clear spirit message while in the southern California desert, It's time to go to Arizona. She told her husband and they came.

They found a small house off Brewer Road surrounded by trees. "All my life," she said, "I felt out of place in normal society but here, I felt like I was in heaven. At last I was in a place I could be myself. And finally I understood what it meant to love the land. I feel a part of the land and energy here. This is home."

The town was small and quiet. Within six months, key members of her soul family arrived. Two of them she found were already here, Ani Williams and Aurora Adonai. Aurora was a dancer and painter who also did jin shin jyutsu bodywork.
 
 

Solara's marriage lasted just seven months after arrival. One of her sons, Noel, stayed in town over the years. The other son left to be with his father. Major life changes were a common experience among new arrivals.

In Sedona, she says,
 

The channel for Aton left in a few years. After he left, Alon and Alina held meditations for seven years on Monday nights. The same people came for a while and new ones kept joining the group. Eventually there were too many. Neighbors complained of the traffic and the meditations had to stop.

Alina is still in town, also known as Zalina, an oracle. She walks and talks spirit, says Solara. Alon was here for 13 years and still comes back, occasionally. Solara feels close to him. It is as though he were a "brother through time."

Solara's training, a B.A. in dance emphasizing both improvisation and technique, has turned out to be the perfect background for her work. Spiritual guidance told her after she came to Sedona, Now we're going to teach you how to dance.

Excuse me? she thought. I've been performing for years! But spirit taught her how to follow sound and memory lines back to the ancient temples where she was trained. She had invisible instructors.

"I was taught an Atlantean priestess dance, every single step. It was to be done exactly the same way every time, unlike other dances." She was to imagine the head of a doe over her head, feel her way into its essence, then begin the dance.

Gradually Solara realized her instructors were teaching her how to cross time frequencies, how to go into different dimensional frequencies and bring the essence back into the 20th century. "They had me focus on Source and get personality out of way."

In 1979, when she was given the dance and invocation from Atlantis, she was shown exactly how to fix her hair in 12 braids. A detailed vision of every aspect of the presentation came into her mind. The dance was presented at the Flicker Shack.

From then on, however, spirit didn't teach specific steps because the interdimensional bridge had been built.

Winged Fire Productions, Solara's company, was birthed in Sedona as transformational theater, a considerable contrast to the conventional theater she had known before. In addition to giving solo performances, Solara has had full production companies of up to 30 people, including musicians, actors, dancers, writers, and technical people. They presented multi-media theater. There would be a major story line with original song and dance, a blending of many art forms. Everything was created from scratch. Solara is in process of writing a production now based on a dream from 1979.

In the early years, Solara says, Ani Williams played guitar and sang. She was just learning harp and had never been on stage. Solara loved everything she did. She recognized sounds Ani made which she knew in her soul. In 1980, Solara put Ani on stage to play her harp dressed like an angel with flowers in her hair. Ani, terrified, froze. Solara recalls hissing from the wings, "Play! play!" At last she did.

At the time of the 11:11 event, November 11, 1991, which was also celebrated by New Agers all over the world, Solara had a full production company.  Channels said it was the date of the opening of the window into the next dimension. Earth would be overlapping 3rd and 4th dimension until 2012 A.D.  Then Earth would be fully fourth dimensional. Solara co-authored a show with Sal Rachele called "Through the Doorway of the Heart." They played to packed houses both in November '91 and January 92. People came from all over the region to see it.

Ani Williams moved from Sedona to Seattle in 1995 to be closer to her daughter. But she still comes to town at least twice a year. Solara says, "We are both very clearly aware of having been trained in the ancient Egyptian temples. We were trained to use sound, movement, and color for healing work."

Solara uses movement while Ani uses sound. They spark each other. "Sounds open up new dimensions for me," says Solara. "We are major keys for each other in that way. We are still performing together and planning more performances along with sound and movement healing workshops." Ani created the Songaia tapes, 12 healing tapes which correlate sound with body parts, planets, chakras, and colors.

"When I do ancient temple dances," says Solara, "that's what I use. They take me immediately back to that frequency.

"I go into the silence and listen. I keep awakening more and more of myself."

Nowadays, Solara says to spirit, Dance me.  And spirit always does. She travels all over country and performs before hundreds of people, trusting that the perfect movements will come through.

Solara brings her own music and sound tapes for performances. Each dance is different because the energy of everyone in the audience is an integral part of the dance. She feels/listens to the group energy. Ani's tapes, which she often uses, seem to cover many different cultures but Solara has collected and used other music tapes, too. Sometimes she performs with musicians in the area.