caw. who?
let’s meet Kate
caw
I am the braincrow of Kate Bonavich Parkin, a crowwalker among many other things (artist, writer, poet, filmmaker, photographer, musician, actor, producer, yoga + meditation guide, and wildlife + environmental advocate).
“Bird sound is an incredibly healing force. Our relationship with birds can bring about personal, and I believe, global change.”
Kate photographed by @itakeshots, Rock Creek, Land of the Anacostans, Piscataway-Conoy, Pamunkey (US National Park)
caw work
Kate is currently working on several writing projects, and creating new music and meditations implementing sounds captured on her crow walks. A yoga practitioner for 15+ years, she is pursuing her 200+ hour teacher training through Yoga Alliance.
Kate led her first public sound meditation in mourning for the ancient trees of Rock Creek (the US National Park, Land of the Anacostans, Piscataway-Conoy, Pamunkey) before they were cut down for a golf course expansion, honoring the indigenous land that continues to be colonized.
She submitted her photography through DC Ecowomen to the White House in fall of 2024 in support of the wildlife of Rock Creek (birds, coyotes, the endangered long-eared bat and Hay’s spring amphipod) who will be devastated by the golf course expansion.
Kate guiding the sound meditation for the trees of Rock Creek, photographed by @itakeshots
Her work as a copywriter, communication specialist, and researcher - as well as managing a musical youtube channel from a young age - brought her the experience to begin this special crowmmunity. Her musical youtube work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, TIME, Billboard, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, MTV, and more. She has worked with (human) communities for several social movements, numerous non-profits, film studios, artists, and some of the top brands in the world.
As an actor, she has performed in regional theatre across the country in Los Angeles, Boulder, and the DC area, drawn to classical Shakespeare and new works. Her first short film she co-produced and starred in, Emilia, was an Official Selection at the Stratford-upon-Avon ‘Shakespeare on Film Festival.’ The film used the text of Othello to share a modernized tale of a woman leaving an abusive marriage. She believes in the power of stories to heal, and sharing in the healing process with audiences. Had it not been for the shutdown of theatre during 2020, perhaps she would have remained onstage and not retreating to the woods to study birds and write about it in every spare moment.
She has performed her music as a singer-songwriter in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Nashville. Her poetry was honored the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and displayed on a street sign on Venice Blvd. as a project to beautify LA streets and encourage pedestrian and cycling use of the walkways.
She is honored to currently be on the screening committee for the DC Environmental Film Festival.
(Portfolio available upon request. Let’s work together and change the world?)
caw beginnings
Kate feeding the hummingbirds in Maine
Born and raised in Virginia, Kate spent her summers attending nature camps, and later teaching art through a natural lens at these same camps - with a couple weeks in Maine each summer at her great-aunt’s cabin on the lake. Feeding the hummingbirds and listening to the loons of Maine as a child sparked the beginnings of her journey with birds. Inspired by the beautiful landscapes of the country, she spent several years after college out west in California and Colorado exploring the forests, oceans, and mountains.
Kate received her BA in Drama from Ithaca College (Cum Laude) with scholarships from the National Foundation for YoungArts for Play/Script Writing and the John B. Harcourt Writing scholarship. Her studies at Ithaca College focused on writing, English, directing, acting, design, dramaturgy, and Shakespeare - with the opportunity to take additional classes in philosophy, logic, marketing, computer science, psychology, women’s studies, and environmental studies. Her dramaturgical & design thesis was a re-imagining of Hamlet through the lens of Ophelia and Gertrude, and she has gently alluded to Shakespeare in some of her crow-etry (crow poetry).
Kate has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her first play, written at sixteen, was selected as the high school division winner for the First Light Play Festival at George Mason University (Theatre of the First Amendment), and was developed and produced with a professional team for a staged reading at the festival. She also studied at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Theater Institute, at the St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy in Russia, the Ithaca College London Center, and started out as an intern The Orange Tree Theatre in London assisting with Shakespeare Education workshops.
Kate currently works in Washington DC and resides across the river in Virginia, befriending crows wherever she goes. She draws upon inspiration from the birds and natural world in all of her art. You can listen to her music wherever you stream music these days, and you can likely find her sitting by a real stream, listening to the birds.