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The Beet-In is a multi-sensory exploration of the beet. It was initiated in May of 2010 with a happening at 4763 York Blvd that presented the beet in several participatory contexts in one room, including painting with beet juice, crocheting and knitting beets, a beet seedling viewing station, live beet juicing, beet treats, a presentation/performance on the mythology of the beet, and TiGeorges Coffee.  Since then, the Beet-In has continued through actions in Putney, VT during a collaborative community artist residency, as well as in a performance in May 2012 at the Highland Park Farmers Market as part of the Tossed Salad series, and another performance later that year at the Café de Cheap Artistes at Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, VT. 

Taking the Beet[root] as an aesthetic muse, and positioning it on a pedestal beside its homophonic twins the Beat (a rhythmic pulse), and the Beats (a social and poetic movement), the focus is on creating an immersive environment where these concepts can be consumed in the manner of a meal, with play, punsterism, non-academic, non-linear ways of considering information.  There are 3 major roots: 1-The Beetroot, beta vulgaris, vegetable, a deeply pigmented plant with a colorful history that starts on the Mediterranean coast, and ties into the end of the Atlantic Slave trade, and the fall of the USSR, through sugar production.  2- the beat as a rhythm, cyclical, expressive of a fundamental element that connects our bodies to the earth and the universe and is something we can experience through music and dance. 3- the beat movement in art and poetry that was a counter-cultural movement of resistance to the status quo, being “beat,” poor, on the road, also connected to Taoist and Buddhist spirituality. Embracing wildness, spontaneity, an aesthetic deeper than grassroots. Echoing in name the Be-in, a massive happening in golden gate park that called for the youth of that decade to drop out[of the capitalist war machine] and tune in[to their human potential].