Michael Sternfeld, Dancer, Poet, Narrator

Art inspired from the depths of consciousness has been Michael Sternfeld's life-long passion.  He began his performing career exploring mythic art as a professional modern dancer and went on to produce, direct and/or perform in over 400 theater, music, dance, video and performance art events.

After returning to graduate school to earn an M.A. in Vedic Studies, he discovered the richness of the Vedas, and especially the Ramayana.  He went on to direct several theatrical productions of the Ramayana,

developed the Hero's Quest-- an outdoor theme park based on themes from the Ramayana-- and then directed and also performed the first complete audio

production of the unabridged Ramayana.  This production--the world's longest audio book at 75 hours--was  funded under a major grant from the

National Endowment for the Humanities and was awarded the "2004 Outstanding Project of the Year" by Humanities Iowa and the NEH.  He has also produced and performed on numerous audio books, including a

collection of stories from the Upanishads and several volumes of Panchtantra stories for children.

Although he has been enchanted with the Ramayana for a number of years, he does make an exception for Western poetry with the work of Rumi.  He has been an avid reader and performer of Rumi's work in

various performance art events. He also continues to teach, lecture, and publish in areas of myth and world literature.

Candlelight Reading Series appearances:

12-06-2008 The Poetry of Light & Dark

02-13-2009 Love & Erotic Poetry

02-20-2009 Love & Erotic Poetry (Held over)