Chris Berry - Ecstatic Dance Oakland - Sunday @ Sweets
Schedule
Sun Jun 30 2024 at 10:00 am to 01:11 pm
UTC-07:00Location
Sweets Ballroom | Oakland, CA
Ecstatic Dance Oakland - Sweets BallroomSunday June 30 - DJ: Chris Berry
Contact Improv: René Alvarez
Yoga: Shakti Ganeshan
Circle & Meditation: Tamara Bliss
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Timing: (Arrive when you Wish)
9:45am - Doors Open
10am - Contact Improv (Main Floor)
10am - Yoga (Upstairs)
10:45am - Opening Circle
11am - Ecstatic Dance
1pm - Sound Healing / Meditation
1:11pm - Good Day! - Time for Picnic
After Dance Picnic is held next to Lake Merritt near the Fairyland Sign by Whole Foods on Grand Avenue & Harrison.
Tickets:
Available at the door with Cash / Card / Venmo
$25 Drop-In
$20 Circle Passes sold in 5 packs ($100)
@ Sweets Ballroom
1933 Broadway, Oakland, CA
19th St. BART
Webster Street Garage, 1721 Webster St, Oakland
Volunteer Opportunity: Show up at 9am sharp! for Opening
or ask at the door for Closing Opportunities.
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DJ: Chris Berry
Grammy award winner Chris Berry is an eclectic singer and songwriter, multi-instrumentalist virtuoso, and high-energy performer and teacher. From his humble beginning during Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, he has blasted his powerful Afro-infused sound around the World for over twenty years; rocking audiences from NYC’s Irving Plaza to sold out stadiums in South Africa and Sydney Australia’s famous Opera House. He has released over a dozen albums; scored the soundtrack for three films; and has been collaborating and performing with some of the World’s best performers like Eminem, Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, Senegalese Afro-Pop sensation Yousoou N’dour, Cuban Legends Los Munequitos de Mantanzas, Jazz artist Paul Winter, Jamaican rhythm and production duo Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare), Fugee’s producer Handel Tucker, and many more.
Chris was born and raised in California where he began his apprenticeship with Master Drummer Titos Sompa (one of the founders of the African drum and dance scene on the West Cost of the U.S.) as a fifteen year old boy. This relationship led him into a ten year journey to Africa. Eight of these years were spent in Zimbabwe during the Mugabe Regime. During this tumultuous political period, Chris found himself living in the ghettos and villages of Zimbabwe where he sought to study the music of the Shona people, adding to his growing repertoire of Traditional African Music. He became initiated by the village elders into their heritage, mastered the Mbira, and learned to speak their language fluently. Immersed in the culture of all-night Mbira Ceremonies, Chris found his voice singing among the polyrhythmic harmonies commonly found throughout Zimbabwe and most of South Africa. It was soon after that his musical career took off. Encouraged by his teachers to create his own compositions, he formed the band Panjea which fused Funk with elements of Hip-Hop, Afro-Pop, and traditional African music. The band quickly had No. 1 hits on the radio, toured all over Africa, and reached Platinum Record Sales on an album they recorded with Zimbabwean-based Gramma Records.
From there, Chris has toured extensively around the globe including North and Central America, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Asia, and Africa as a frontman and bandleader. He performed the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia; co-wrote for Paul Winter’s Grammy Award Winning 2009 “Winter Solstice” album; taught music and culture as a guest faculty member at Oberlin and Berklee Colleges of Music, University of Colorado Boulder, Williams College and Stanford University and his own Panjea Foundation for Cultural Education; and has headlined in major Music Festivals around the World.
Contact Improv: René Alvarez
René Alvarez (Oakland, CA) is a Contact Improvisation (CI) fanatic since 2000, has studied with many first generation CI teachers and is also influenced by Axis Syllabus, Flow Arts, Parkour and Motivity Aerial Dance. René teaches/curates weekly CI classes in Berkeley. This was their 22th year of participation at Burning Man, teaching/curating classes for Camp Contact. René is an organizer for the West Coast CI Jam (wcciJAM), and the founder of InterKinected LLC whose mission is to investigate and promote Contact Improvisation, through organization and sponsorship of classes, jams, festivals, intensives, laboratories, films, media and showings.
Yoga: Shakti Ganeshan
Sumati Shakthi Ganeshan, MD, MPH, doctor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, trained at Baylor College of Medicine. She also has a Masters of Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health. She has been exploring health and the body since she was a child. She learned Indian Classical dance, Bharatha Natyam from the age of 9. Her father and brother both were carnatic Indian music vocalists. Shakthi experienced a childhood of ancestral Indian temple culture, Indian classical music training, including bhajans and vedic chants. She began her studies of yoga in 1997. After years serving her patients in the fields of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, she turned her life to the study, practice and teaching of yoga. She has studied in both the Astanga and Iyengar traditions, and has been teaching since 2001.
Shakthi has studied with Rodney Yee, Shiva Rea, Sarah Powers, and more recently with Timothy Lynch. She has taken thousands of hours of in-depth yoga trainings, and has delivered thousands of hours of yoga classes, trainings, immersions, and retreats. Shakthi is a dharma teacher in the Vipassana tradition, having completed Spirit Rock/IMS's multi-year Community Dharma Leader program. She has studied Buddhist philosophy with Jack Kornfield, Guy Armstrong, Joseph Goldstein, James Baraz, Gil Fronsdale, Andrea Fella, Pamela Weiss, Kate Munding. She is co-founder of Assayasangha.org. She has studied clinical Ayurveda, including pulse and tongue diagnosis with Dr. Sarita Shrestha, and continues her studies with Dr. Robert Svoboda. She is a trained Interplay Leader (levels 1 and 2) - a healing modality combining singing, storytelling and dance in the form of classes and workshops. She is absolutely humbled by what she does not know, loves relating with students, loves being curious and adores being open to the unfolding.
Circle & Meditation: Tamara Bliss
Tamara Bliss is a healing artist, avid dancer, and event producer of Down 2 Dance for partner dancers. She has served the Ecstatic Dance community for over a decade as a massage therapist and facilitates the practitioners at Sweets Ballroom. She began her practice of meditation as a child and enjoys bringing connection to the Earth, our bodies as well as the experience of community into the opening & closing ceremonies.
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Website:
https://ecstaticdance.org/dance/oakland-ecstatic-dance-sunday-morning/
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@ Sweets Ballroom
1933 Broadway, Oakland, CA
19th St. BART
Webster Street Garage, 1721 Webster St, Oakland
