There’s new kind of festival coming to CT. Here’s why it’s quite different

A first annual Movement and Arts Festival is ready to take Connecticut by storm with belly dancing and hula hoop performances, mediums and intuitives, vendors, live music and positivity.

Folks will get a chance to try classes at the event.

The festival is planned for Sept. 28 and is being co-hosted by Andrea McKay, owner of Yoga, Dance And Fitness center in Simsbury and her friend, dance student and medium/intuitive Janine Baryza-Ly.

The festival will take place at Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center outdoor venue at 22 Iron Horse Blvd. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“It’s a day for the community to come together and have a fun time,” said McKay, who is hooking the event to the second anniversary of her popular dance studio.

An early bird special on tickets runs through July 31, for $20 per adult and $7 per child. After that date tickets will be $25 per adult and $10 per child. For more information call 860-713-1217.

From noon to 1:15 p.m. on festival day there will be stage performances by the studio’s belly dancers, including male students, as well as their hula-hoopers and performances by other studios.

Students of all ages, up to 75 years old, will perform.

“I love teaching and being with our students,” McKay said. “For me it’s like my happy place. ”

Baryza-Ly, who has been in the “healing arts” for 20 years, working throughout the country, said “any kind of healing” requires “movement and fun.”

“This is beautiful,” she said of people connecting with their creativity.

“It’s a go as you are,” event aimed at fostering “a sense of belonging,” Baryza-Ly said. “It’s showing there’s no age limit to being creative, being on stage.”

Baryza-Ly said the world needs that now — a space where people can look at each other and “feel joy.”

McKay, a mother of five who also works as an attorney, said the studio has grown nicely in two years, in part because it’s rare to find belly dancing and hula hooping in the area.

McKay said her advanced belly dancing class formed a troup, Eternal Rose, that performs throughout Connecticut.

McKay began her career as a professional dancer, became an attorney, then opened the center.

Baryza-Ly said a group of healers/intuitives hand selected by her will be there and will offer personal readings as vendors.

Intuitives encompass “soft and gentle love,” she said.