Our Purpose
Our purpose is to foster self-esteem through respecting culture and education, by developing activities that help youth feel safe, engaged, strong, and resilient, while nurturing positive, healthy habits of self-expression.
Our Vision
Healing and hope in every Alaskan community through the transformative power of music and dance.
This Arts, Health and Well-Being in Alaska project is supported, in part, by a grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts with funding from Rasmuson Foundation.
HTMD is supported in part by Creative West and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Mission of Healing Through Music & Dance (HTMD) is to share skills to create music & dance; clear a path for safe, creative expression of feelings; begin trauma recovery; build lasting relationships; connect often.
Using music and dance to create connectedness* and self-expression in a safe and creative environment, HTMD offers interactive workshops, concerts and dance opportunities in Alaskan communities.
The program features Canadian virtuoso Harmonica Man Mike Stevens, who specializes in using the arts to connect with those who have experienced trauma or other life challenges. Students work individually and in teams to create stories and musical works that give them strength and inspiration. Each participant receives a harmonica to keep and basic instruction. Mike collaborates with a local musician, drummer and/or dancers sharing cultures and creating new works of self-expression using both traditional and contemporary styles. HTMD strives to foster self-esteem through respecting culture and education, by developing activities that help youth feel safe, engaged, strong and resistant to alcohol, drugs and other forms of abuse. This work addresses the need to prevent suicide by developing connections with those who have survived trauma. The purpose is to teach new skills, promote self-esteem and creative self-expression.
Stevens, founder of ArtsCan Circle, has led award-winning programs in Canadian villages for more than 20 years.
Our History
Healing through Music and Dance became a member project of the North Star Community Foundation (NSCF) in March 2024. Prior to that, HTMD was a program fund of Bethel Community Services Foundation starting in 2018. The program originated as an Outreach activity of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in 2013 with its first events in Bethel and Akiak. It quickly expanded to Hooper Bay and other western communities in need of suicide prevention support at the request of the Yukon Kuskokwim Behavioral Health.
Since the onset, Harmonica Man Mike Stevens, founder of ArtsCan Circle in Canada, has brought his healing music message and safe expression of feelings through the breath and harmonica throughout Alaska, especially in 30 remote communities.
HTMD has served 30 Communities as of July 1, 2024 cultivating ongoing relationships by repeated visits: Fairbanks (19 times), Nenana (9), Arctic Village (4), Venetie, Ruby, Bethel (16), Chefornak, Newtok (2), Mertarvik, Akiak (5), Alakanuk, Hooper Bay (4+), Chevak, Utqiagvik/Barrow, Huslia (3), Tanana(6), Healy, Denali Park, Cantwell, Anderson(2), Galena (3), Nulato, Koyukuk, Nome (3), Kotzebue (3),Noorvik, Napaskiak, Anchorage (2), Eagle River and Rampart.
Meet the Artists
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Mike Stevens
Harmonica Virtuoso
Mike Stevens is an award-winning harmonica player, composer and author living in Sarnia, Ontario Canada. His talent is as unorthodox as his career trajectory. As a ground-breaking performer, composer, educator, keynote speaker and author, Mike continues to expand the paradigms of harmonica, balancing tradition with cutting-edge innovation.
He has toured the world with legendary Bluegrass music stars and Grand Ole Opry members Jim & Jesse and can count among his fans Roy Acuff, the King of country music. Roy would in fact make special trips to the Opry stage just to watch Mike play. Mike has logged more than 300 appearances on the world famous Grand Ole Opry stage and is a true pioneer of Bluegrass Harmonica; creating a much copied style of playing. Mike Stevens has performed prestigious venues and at major festivals all over the world. He has entertained crowds throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Japan, China, Antarctica and even the North Pole!
Mike is also the Founder of Artscan Circle, a non-profit organization that builds relationships with Northern Communities across Canada and Alaska using the arts as a tool for self expression and joy.
For more than 35 years Mike has been doing solo live looping harmonica and exploring his own unique vocal harmonica technique. A Mike Stevens concert is a highly original multi-genre explosion of ideas with a socially conscious message. He continues to pioneer looping techniques with voice and harmonica, which have been spreading throughout the world. Mike refuses to stop pushing musical boundaries in both his solo concerts and his Avant Garde “Soundscape” performances with world renown Magnum photojournalist Larry Towell.
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Marc Brown
Guitar
Born into a family of musicians, Marc Brown of Marc Brown & The Blues Crew was raised in Huslia, Alaska. He learned to play the guitar starting at age four and eventually joined his grandfather’s band, gathering a country gospel influence. Marc later studied at Berklee College of Music. Throughout their more than 20-year career, Marc Brown & The Blues Crew opened for several big name acts including ZZ Top and Jethro Tull. Their 10th album, Indian Rock’n’Roll, won them a 2011 Native American Music Award for Best Blues Recording and a nomination for Group Of The Year. Their latest album, “Still Got the Blues”, stays true to the band’s danceable blues sound.
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Jeff Getty
Guitar
Jeff Getty is a life-long guitarist who has performed north-americana based music (blues, rock, country, folk, jazz, etc.) at festivals, concerts, and live music venues throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe as both a solo performer and as a backing musician.
Jeff started playing guitar at age 12, by age 14 he was teaching which he has continued to the present. He taught at Huron House Boys Home in Ontario, CA, a residential school for at-risk youth.
Jeff was part of a group who won the Hard Rock Café’s battle of the bands in Toronto. He toured the UK, playing the Borderline Club in London and an array of festivals as openers for the likes of Joe Cocker and Amy Winehouse. He has played CBGB's (NYC) and was a regular performer at the legendary Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. He also spent time in Austin, Texas, playing the 6th Street circuit regularly.
In recent years, Jeff has performed as a backing musician with world-renowned harmonica virtuoso, Mike Stevens. He has visited many Alaskan communities as part of the Healing through Music & Dance Program with Mike Stevens, including an historic collaborative performance with Chevak drummer Panuk Agimuk at the Cama-i Festival in Bethel. Additionallly, he performed in Akiak, Hooper Bay, Chevak, Newtok, Mertarvik, Fairbanks, Nenana, Ruby, Galena, Tanana.