kirtan
Retreats
Bhakti Fest 2010: Four Days of Yoga and Kirtan in Joshua Tree
- Who: A ton of people. Lots of big name yogis like Shiva Rea and Sara Ivanhoe, and a major gang of kirtan artists including Krishna Das, Bhagavan Das, Dave Stringer, and MC Yogi.
- What: A four-day yoga music festival in the desert. Think lots of kirtan, lots of yoga, plus meditation lectures, seminars, and fire ceremonies galore.
- When: September 9-12, 2010
- Where: Joshua Tree, CA
Planning Chakra
New York City Yoga Weekend Planner
Spring is in the air, and the season of nutty outdoor yoga events is approaching. Yogis long to be feral. Meantime, there's the regular drumbeat of indoor yoga workshops, kirtan jams, and meditation fests happening all over the place. San Francisco yogi Dina Amsterdam emailed to tell us she'll be making a tour through New York this weekend to teach her popular "Pure Yin" classes at Om Factory and Yogaworks Soho. Not to be missed. This prompted us to round up all of the other potentially life-changing yogic things going on this weekend, which you can browse after the jump....
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Retreats
Kirtan and Yoga for The Australian Autumn Equinox
- Who: Kirtan singer Dave Stringer and Sydney yoga instructor Nicole Goodwin.
- What: Yoga, hiking, and daily kirtan just outside an old-growth eucalyptus forest packed with koala bears, all in celebration of the Autumn Equinox, which happens in March in the southern hemisphere.
- Where: Jasper's Village Resorts, in Hastings Valley, Australia (5 1/2 hours north of Sydney)
- When: March 18 - 21, 2010
Your Playlists
Cooler Yoga Music: "The Yoga Sessions"
What makes good yoga music? Sitar? Chanting? The kirtan crowd leans that way, and they seem to be having a marvelous time. But Yoga Organix begs to differ. Yoga instructor Derek Beres has a following at Equinox, but he also has a following as DJ and music journalist, and now YogaOrganix is putting out his first yoga music album. Together he and David "Duke Mushroom" Schommer are EarthRise Sound System, and they describe their new album, "The Yoga Sessions," as "percussively rich" and "dubby." Set for a 1/1/2010 release, the tracks are apparently intended to be as good in a club as they are in a yoga class. So if you could use a little break from Bhagavan Das (not that you don't love him!) consider slipping "The Yoga Sessions" to your yoga teacher as a little New Year's present.
Events
Halloween Kirtan At Jivamukti
If the thought of having to scrounge up super-sexy plans this Halloween weekend fills your mellow, anti-social yogic heart with dread, consider this: Tomorrow night at Jivamukti, Bhagavan Das is leading a kirtan. Go with your like-minded spiritual, misanthropic friends, drink some agave nectar and chant like hell to the Gods. Then rush home to binge on Hershey's kisses.
- Who: Bhagavan Das
- What: Kirtan
- Where: Jivamukti Yoga Center
- When: October 30, 8:30
Wanderlust from the Perspective of a non-Yogi: Kirtan Call
Our first experience at Wanderlust was Kirtan, which to my understanding is basically call-and-response chanting where a leader, backed up by a variety of ethereal instruments and light percussion, calls out a chant in Hindi, and then the crowd chants back attempting to mimic the foreign syllables.
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Late Breaking
Saturday Night Chanting
Don't say we didn't tell you: Tonight -- actually in about 30 minutes -- Jivamukti downtown is hosting something called the Kirtan Dance Party -- with celebrity guests Sura Das & The Temple Bhajan Band. Please remember that kirtan is all the rage. Stuck at home and desperate to commune with the ancient vedic texts? Here's the Jiva pitch....
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Good Vibrations
Holla Back, Yoga Style
Singing does a body good, but just because you're not the barbershop quartet or showtunes type doesn't mean you have to miss out on the good vibrations. Enter kirtan. Picture a group of musicians playing traditional Indian instruments -- tabla, harmonium -- while they chant mantras in Sanskrit. Then add you, chanting in response, swaying, and, if the spirit moves you, jumping to your feet and dancing your heart out. That's kirtan. Think meditation, but instead of silently trying to quiet your inner monkey, you sing till you can't hear the chatter anymore. You sway till you're totally blissed out.
Sound worth a try? New Yorkers can find kirtan Friday and Saturday nights at the Integral Yoga Institute. Jivamukti Yoga. The New York Center for Kripalu Yoga also hosts occasional kirtan events. Or you can be bold and embrace kirtan TONIGHT! Check out the Kirtan Concert at the Yoga Journal Conferece tonight at 7:30 P.M. at the midtown Hilton, featuring Krishna Das (basically, the Justin Timberlake of the kirtan world). Doors open at 7:00 P.M.
New York
I ain't no fool, April 1st!
hi!
man do i need some sleep. blog first! can't miss the first days blog!!
Today was productive as heck. 2 workouts in there too!
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