Vous êtes le visiteur numéro 105.216.314 Sejak 01 Muharam 1428 ( 20 Januari 2007 )
AGENDA
No data available
News
21 februari 2009 04:11
Bali Festival Seeks Unity In Arts
Bali- Meghan Pappenheim and Kadek Gunartha, the husband and wife co-founders of the Balispirit festival, have put their hearts and souls into promoting a collaboration of people from all over the world to be immersed in yoga, dance and music in Bali.
“The vision behind the festival is to be able to create an experience for the Asian population,” said Meghan, a New York native who met Kadek in 1996, while living in Bali as a student. “To give them an experience that we often already have in the United States and Australia of these kinds of ‘conscious festivals.’ Whatever they get out of this yoga, dance and music festival, they can bring forward and share with other people.”
The seeds for the festival were sown in 2002, when the first Bali bombing occurred. Meghan was training to become a yoga teacher in Ubud. With tourists abandoning the island and the Balinese people around her struggling to make ends meet, she decided her heart wasn’t in becoming a yoga teacher. Instead, Meghan and Kadek became yoga entrepreneurs, opening a small studio with classes taught by other people.
“We realized that there was a big demand for yoga and that maybe this would be a way for us to pass on our ideas about the benefits of yoga,” Kadek said.
The bombing was also the catalyst for her to create the Web site, Balispirit.com
“The vision behind the Web site at that time was to get a group of like-minded people online to promote Bali with a more positive essence,” she said. “One of the main goals of Balispirit.com is to have a listing of socially and environmentally conscious businesses.”
Soon after, they set up Kafe, a venue that originally served soups and salads. The yoga classes at their studio became so popular that they also ended up creating a new yoga space above Kafe.
Yoga is something that Meghan and Kadek feel brings balance and clarity to people’s lives. This year’s Balispirit festival will feature many world-renowned yoga teachers, including the United States’s Eoin Finn, a yogi and surfer; Ines Somellera from Mexico, an actor, director and producer for theater and dance; Katy Appleton, a former professional dancer for the Royal Ballet in the United Kingdom and now a yogi; Swami Shankardev Saraswati from Australia, a medical doctor, yoga therapist and internationally acclaimed author and presenter; and Pujiastuti Sindhu, a Kundalini yoga teacher from Bandung, who is at the forefront of the yoga movement for the Muslim community.
“I’ve been dreaming about creating an event that’s a cross-cultural collaboration,” said Kadek, who comes from a long line of Balinese artists.
“Many people from all over the world come to Bali just to learn or experience something, so I thought it would be good to have an event here where we could have the space and hold activities for all of those people to share in these experiences.”
Balispirit will also include art and culture from all over Indonesia’s archipelago, Kadek said. “We have bands from Solo and Java coming here,” he said. “We want to show that even though we are different culturally, we still have one background.”
Robert Weber, the third co-founder of the Balispirit festival and a gifted musician, will also bring his passion for music to this year’s festival, with a varied line-up of local and foreign musicians and entertainers.
Those performing include: Rocky Dawuni from Ghana, Suzanne Teng from the United States, child star guitarist Abi Yoga and Simak Dialog from Indonesia, Cynthia Alexander from the Philippines and the Cudamani Dance Troupe founded by Emiko Susilo in the United States. Bali’s own Dewa Brata will also perform.
While Kadek and Meghan started the festival with almost no money, they said that what kept them going was the support of their friends, who strongly believe Balispirit is the way they can make a contribution to the local community
“With this festival, we can create something that everybody can be involved in,” Kadek said. “We don’t care if later on it’s no longer our festival, but the people’s festival.”
aujourd hui 
Hier 
La semaine dernière, 
Le mois dernier 
