A new festival is debuting in October that’s meant to feel like a calming retreat. Even the name, ELSEWHERE, conveys transporting one to another place. Organizer Alyssa Reyes describes it as a nomadic gathering in Central Oregon blending music, art, movement, ceremony and connection.
“The event is going to bring together about 30 or so different wisdom sharers, embodiment teachers, musicians, artists and guides. It’s going to be like a healing festival of sorts. A time for celebration, for dancing, all of your favorite parts of a festival, but anchored in a deeper aspect that centers, kind of like collective care and healing and community,” she told the Source.
Workshops and classes will be centered around breathwork, somatics, sound, acupuncture, dance, yoga, art, skill share and more. The event, scheduled for the afternoon and evening of Saturday Oct. 18, will also have live music and a sunset dinner by Made to Nourish. In addition, Gather Sauna House will be there along with a village marketplace, a pop-up art gallery and, close to Reyes’ heart, a tea lounge.
“We’re planning to construct a mobile tea house,” she explains. “And then offer community tea and elixirs in that little space within the broader space of the festival.” She believes tea commands a person’s presence and connection. “I feel like there’s a really growing community of people that want to connect intentionally in community. I feel like we have a vibrant community of ecstatic dancers and medicine workers and creative people and folks that are really wanting to come together, not at a bar.”
Among the collaborators attending ELSEWHERE are author Pixie Lighthorse, community healer Maribel Ramirez, performing artist, dancer and drummer Fodeliche Syzzla, sound healer Devon Shephard Bates, astrologist Jess Ellen, shuffle dancers AnnieCattabriga-Alosa and Caroline Kim and many more.
Reyes is hoping to use the festival as a launching pad for her bigger dream of creating a permanent space that combines a tea house that’s open at night in a warehouse-type space housing other compatible vendors who celebrate healing, subculture and diversity through art, music, movement, unique merchandise and meaningful tattoos. She envisions a place where people are sipping wildcrafted tea, writing, reading, listening to jazz, browsing art, chatting with friends — inspired by togetherness and creativity. She describes it as a sober-curious movement and is raising money for a building within the Bend Central District.
Reyes is an outdoor yoga guide through her business Soul Trip, as well as a bassist for Not Your Ex Lover, which just won runner-up for Best Local Band 2025. She’s convinced there’s a need for ELSEWHERE and now is the right time. Her vision statement says Bend lacks a venue that’s a warm, inviting alternative to bars. A sober space that comes alive after 9pm with live music, storytelling, tea ceremonies, vinyl listening parties or full moon yoga. A space that’s open, fostering collaborations, where a class might flow into a concert or a tea ceremony might accompany an author or poetry reading.
But it begins with the ELSEWHERE festival which Reyes calls a gathering of living wisdom. “There’s the social aspect of bringing people together to…offer them an opportunity to slow down, to connect with themselves, to connect with the people that they’re with, instead of the hustle and bustle of getting fueled up on coffee.”
She says the event will begin with some embodiment practices. “We have an amazing woman coming up from near Eugene who’s going to be guiding a cacao communion to open up our space. We’re bringing in a number of people to share their culture with us and their lineage with us. I think that’s a really, really beautiful thing to bring people together…and honoring the roots in which a lot of this wisdom comes from.”
Reyes says the event, being held at the Hanai Foundation, is being capped at 100 people. Ticket prices are around $135 but will be on a sliding scale in an effort to include everyone.
ELSEWHERE
Sat., Oct. 18, 2-10pm
Hanai Foundation
62430 Eagle Road, Bend
eventbrite.com/e/elsewhere-a-gathering-of-living-wisdom-tickets-1617875923439?aff=oddtdtcreator
$135 Sliding Scale
This article appears in the Source September 18, 2025.
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