Anindo Sings Miriam & Healing · Drumming · Chanting · Movement · Art
Concerts/Workshop/Retreats/Talks
ANINDO SINGS MIRIAM & MORE... is a performance that tells the story of Legendary African Singer Miriam Makeba. Miriam Makeba was born March 4, 1932 in Prospect Township, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Her singing appearance in the documentary film Come Back, Africa attracted the interest of Harry Belafonte. With his help, Makeba settled in the US, where she embarked on a successful singing and recording career. In 1965 she and Belafonte won a Grammy Award for best folk recording. She received renewed attention in 1986 when fellow South African musician Hugh Masekela introduced her to Paul Simon, and a year later she joined Simon's history-making Graceland tour. The tour focused attention on apartheid in Makeba's homeland, where she would eventually return, encouraged by Nelson Mandela after his release from prison in 1990. Miriam was Mama Africa, a lady with a special touch. She has weathered many storms in her life, including several car accidents, a plane crash and even cancer. She remained as active in her latter years as she did as a young girl with stars in her eyes. Makeba continued making music and fighting for causes she believed in until November 2008, when she became ill while taking part in a concert being held in Castel Volturno, Italy. Miriam suffered a heart attack after singing her most famous song "Pata Pata", and was rushed to a clinic where doctors were unable to revive her. Miriam Makeba once said: "'I will sing until the last day of my life." That she did.
Besides singing Miriam Makeba songs and telling her story, Anindo will perform others songs; from traditional African songs of Babatunde Olatunji, and West African drumming to Soukous.
There are two performances offered:
The smaller performance will be a 14 piece band, including Anindo, 8 band members, 3 background singers and two dancers. In this performance the audience will experience Miriam Makeba in song, dance and limited media. The performance will also cover other African greats like Babatunde Olatunji, Mamedy Keita and Yondo Sister among others and Anindo's original material.
The bigger performance will be 14 piece band, including actors, props, backdrops etc. and more dancers. This performance will depend on the scenes that will be reenacted. The scenes acted out will interweave on stage with Anindo and the band performing the songs included in a particular scene. There will be full media production telling the story of Miriam Makeba. Emotion and fun filled production!!
Release and Let Go!
Creating a space for:
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Manifestation and creativity
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Healing, forgiveness, and peace
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Pure unconditional love
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Masculine/feminine balance
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Empowerment
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Change, and transformation
OPENING THE SPACE WITH TIBETAN SINGING BOWLS
With the right sounds, you can align yourself with the vibrations that foster health, happiness, and unity. The body is its own best healer. When balanced and harmonious, your body knows exactly what to do in any situation. One tool that can help you tap into the balance, harmony, and healing that is innately within you is sound.
Sound has been used for generations by most cultures to bring peace and balance. The beating of a drum, playing a singing bowl, and chanting mantras can all have a harmonizing effect. Listening to the sounds of nature also have a healing effect on your well-being. A walk into natural surroundings, can create a soothing effect through your entire physiology. Listening to different music at different times can be used to stimulate or soothe the mind and body. In Indian music, there are specific pieces known as Rajas, which are played at different times of the day to align the rhythms and energies of the body with the rhythms and cycles of nature.
CHANTING
Along with silent meditation, singing bowls, mantras or chants can be used to lead you through situations that we feel stuck in. It has a great impact on the body and mind. Chanting is another form of meditation, it can focus you, affirm you, and heal you. Chants can also be used for daily affirmation. A few minutes spent chanting in the morning is sure to help you attack the day with positivity and open-mindedness and keeping your ego in check.
Some chants register frequencies within the body that help slow down the nervous system, allowing you relax.
Others claim chanting can release melatonin and activate various energies in the body. Deepak Chopra does a great article on sounds role in healing, by Roger Gabriel (Raghavanand)
DRUMMING
Drum therapy is an ancient approach that uses rhythms to promote healing and self-expression. Specifically, from Central Africa and shamans of Mongolia to the Minianka healers of West Africa, therapeutic rhythm techniques have been used for thousands of years to create and maintain physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Drumming reduces tension, anxiety, and stress
Drumming induces deep relaxation, lowers blood pressure, and reduces stress. Stress, according to current medical research, contributes to nearly all disease and is a primary cause of such life-threatening illnesses as heart attacks, strokes, and immune system breakdowns. A recent study found that a program of group drumming helped reduce stress and employee turnover in the long-term care industry and might help other high-stress occupations as well.
Drumming creates a sense of connectedness with self and others
In a society in which traditional family and community-based systems of support have become increasingly fragmented, drumming circles provide a sense of connectedness with others and interpersonal support. A drum circle provides an opportunity to connect with your own spirit at a deeper level, and also to connect with a group of other like-minded people. Group drumming alleviates self-centeredness, isolation, and alienation.
Drumming releases negative feelings, blockages, and emotional trauma
Drumming can help people express and address emotional issues. Unexpressed feelings and emotions can form energy blockages. The physical stimulation of drumming removes blockages and produces emotional release. Sound vibrations resonate through every cell in the body, stimulating the release of negative cellular memories. “Drumming emphasizes self-expression, teaches how to rebuild emotional health, and addresses issues of violence and conflict through expression and integration of emotions,” says Music educator Ed Mikenas.
Rhythm is our natural inheritance. It exists in our bodies, our hearts, our breath. It exists in the vibration of atoms, the cycles of the seasons, the ticking of clocks, the orbit of the earth. There is no part of creation that is without rhythm!
Drumming is a practice that spans the globe and has a presence in every culture. It has been used for centuries in rituals, ceremonies, communication, rites of passage, music and dance, celebration, healing, community building, and cultural events.
ART
Art therapy is a creative method of expression. Art therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensorimotor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change.
art therapy engages the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are
distinct from verbal articulation alone. We will draw out our emotions, as a final discipline, expressing feeling that have come up in this workshop. We will share the feeling drawn – which will further assist with releasing, letting go and begin or continue the healing you need to reach your highest potential.
"When I wake up this morning, I'm going to walk in the direction of my purpose"
That's when manifestation begins.
-Michael Beckwith
ANINDO began her musical and dance career in her homeland of Kenya, as a vocalist/dancer/percussionist. She enjoyed a successful solo career in Europe, as a vocalist, signing a recording contract with EMI Spain, and becoming known as Kenya's singing sensation. Anindo has performed with Babatunde Olatunji, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, among others. While in Kenya as a young dance student in ballet, modern, jazz and African, she met Saundra Barnes, a Dunham dancer living in Kenya and teaching Dunham Technique. Anindo studies with Ms. Barnes (Ife) and in 1983 moved to the USA continuing her study of the Technique with Miss Dunham, and Dunham Masters like: Pearl Reynolds, Archie Savage, Lucille Ellis, Tommy Gomez, Tally Beatty, Vanove Aikens, Theo Jamison, Ronald Marshall and Keith Williams. Her studies included Haitian, Afro Cuban, Brazilian and African forms as taught in Dunham Technique.
Today Ms. Marshall is a Certified Dunham Technique Instructor, and serves as a board member of the Katherine Dunham Certification Board. She has taught and continues to teach worldwide, including Debbie Allen Dance Academy, Dance Dimensions, Lula Washington Dance Theater, Occidental College, LMU, UCI, Dallas Black Dance Theater, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Dance Excellence, USC, LACHSA and conducts Arts residencies in LAUSD, Hawthorne School District and Wiseburn School District schools as programs director with Dream a World Education, as well as conducting residencies in colleges all over the U.S.A. Besides Dunham Technique, Anindo teaches – African, Africa Jazz and Modern.
As an accomplished musician, percussionist Anindo has studied with the world's finest percussionists, Babatude Olatunji, Mamadi Keita, Mor Thiam, Lamin Dido Camara, Karamba Diabate to mention a few. Her study of African rhythms made her continue studying West African dance as well under the umbrella of such teachers as Kimoko Samo (formerly artistic director of Les Ballet African of Guinea W. Africa), Marie Basse and countless other great African dance teachers.
Anindo is a member of ADAAWE, an all-female percussion vocal group, which is based in Los Angeles and tour internationally.
She has developed Healing · Drumming · Chanting · Movement · Art. Workshops/Retreats that use Drumming, Chanting, Movement and Art as a way to connect with self, promoting healing, self awareness, opening up from the inside out, connecting and allowing self expression as a vehicle to release and let go... giving yourself permission to live the life you are meant to.