The Story of Intention

About Intention

Intention was born as the creative response of a newly burgeoning intentional & tribal dance community in Vancouver to the anxiety and tension preceding Y2K. Rather than give in to the fear pervasive at the time, Intention was envisioned as a place to retreat together as a community and create a safe, loving space to project our positive intentions into the coming millennium.

The first Intention Gathering was held at the Sasamat Retreat Centre over 4 days and attended by 80 people. The result was so warm, wonderful and special that we've kept returning every year to re-create this transformational container, embarking on a journey that has helped weave a vibrant community together for over a decade. It is a perfect way to wrap up, honour and release the current year and launch with renewed clarity and juice into a new one!

Intention quickly grew (peaking at over 300 in attendance) during Intention 2 to 7, during which time we moved to a larger location on the sunshine coast. The gathering would then grow by another 50% or so for our large "party night", typically held on New Years Eve but not always.  Some years we've been enjoying not partying on NYE, and instead creating a more ritual and community-deepening space for this night. The "party night" stills happens on a different night of the retreat in these case, with this so-called "party night"  (aka "IntentioNight" and "CelebratioNight") being of course just the single biggest night out of three to four nights of glorious dance parties :-)

Intention 8-19 - a historical writeup coming soon!  Essentially "more of the same, just a little better and more evolved each time!" :-)

Intention 20 aka "Intention XX" was a 20-year special celebration!

Intention 21 was our last event at Camp Elphinstone, and (little did we know at the time) our last event for three years of pandemic.

Summer Intention 2023 was our first multi-day event after the pandemic, and our return to the amazing Crystal Creek venue (all Summer Intentions except 9.5 have been at Crystal Creek, so far.)

Winter Intention 2023 was our first winter event after the pandemic, at the lovely Camp Squeah

Summer Intention 2024 was also at Crystal Creek.

There have also been summer camp-out versions of Intention, originally named for being partway through the year.  These were Intentions 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, 13.5, 14.5, 15.5, 16.5, 18.5, 19.5, Summer Intention 2023, and Summer Intention 2024*  The summer version is in some ways much looser organized than the winter version but still involves the important aspects: workshops, dance parties, ritual, shared meals, and community.

About Tribal Harmonix

Tribal Harmonix is a Vancouver-based collective network of event organizers, artists, healers, performers, activists, and colourful beings who have been working and playing together for over a decade. For the for over ten years THx produced dozens of events, the largest and most enduring being Intention: a five-day fully volunteer-organized family event over New Years which incorporates dancing, parties, workshops, rituals, and DIY culture.  In Fall 2012, Tribal Harmonix decommissioned itself and handed over all assets to a new body Intention Gathering.  This body was formed of THx/Intention organizers from the existing roster merged with the latest round of new organizer from the years approx 2010-2012.  Intention now includes an impressive number of talented "orgs" (as we now like to call ourselves) who joined the Intention organizing ranks 2010 onwards, and still continue to join up today.  New blood is always welcome!

the webite Tribal Harmonix was a thriving community hub for dance culture from 2001-2015. Check in regularly by logging in at http://www.tribalharmonix.org/ (currently offline, waiting for archiving/restoration)
 
Watch this phenomenal TEDxVancouver speech by Tribal Harmonix founding leader Jeet Kei Leung: Transformational Festivals
 
Tribal Harmonix was a name chosen to encapsulate a post-rave community spirit emerging in Vancouver BC and its surrounding forests at the start of the century inspired by the Gathering of the Tribes in the City of Angels. Its website was begun in 2001 with a forum called Harmonies and a post titled "Community". In the age of Facebook community hubs like this face extinction. Yet with 2012 completed and a new era upon us, much of the community that met and grew through the Tribal Harmonix website (and the dance events that it listed) still resonates, some at the Tribal Harmonix Facebook Group, and attracts those ready to inject a little more PLUR into the world, for Tribal Harmonix is also a meme of unified communities connected through dance and collaboration around shared values. 
 
In 2012, the Tribal Harmonix Collective officially disbanded and handed over all assets to the new Intention Gathering collective, consisting of many of the same organizing team, and named after the event that Tribal Harmonix was most famous for.  However, the name Tribal Harmonix still lives on, as a meme, a community, and a way of life.

 

Here are some websites from previous Intentions, where still online.  A few have been lost in the depths of cyberspace, and most of the earliest ones are currently on http://www.tribalharmonix.org/ which is permanently offline though may one day be archived/restored.  Intention 13.5 was on google sites (https://sites.google.com) but has been archived by google and we are still working on restoring it.  Since Intention 14.5 we have been running our own dedicated website https://intentiongathering.org and so far, we haven't lost anything ;-)

re:new (2013 Intention spring event)
 
there have also been a number of one-night events over the years, some of these web pages are still up and will be added to the above list, at some point, eg: Intention in Wonderland
 
* an explanation of naming conventions:

- the first Intention Gathering was just called "Intention", and took place Dec 1999-Jan 2000

- the second Intention Gathering was called "Intention 2" and took place Dec 2000-Jan 2001

- this naming convention continued for many years

- when the summer event was born, the first one was called "Intention 7.5" as it was "half way" between Intention 7 and Intention 8 (and the two events were often referred to as "Summer Intention" and "Winter Intention" since we now had two different "flavours")

- the 20th Winter Intention was a special anniversary and so was named "Intention XX"

- Intention 21 was the last event named in this way... and then the pandemic came :-(

- when we restarted after the pandemic, the old naming convention didn't make sense anymore, so now we just use the year, eg: "Summer Intention 2023", "Winter Intention 2023" (which included the 2023-2024 New Years Eve, as per usual), "Summer Intention 2024", etc.

- the event coming up, the 2024-2025 New Years Eve, is of course Winter Intention 2024 !
 
FOOTAGE!

 Here is a video that was shot, edited and presented at Intention 5, by Twicelost Media:

(to view in fullscreen, use this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zg93hkvrww)

 

A similar video by the same crew, for Intention 6:

(to view in fullscreen, use this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYwoTXNZRDc )