Past Programs
Spirituality - 2008
Swing Low, Sweet Spiritual
26/09/2008
Spirituals are the sacred folk songs of the slavery era in America, the best-known being the African-American spirituals of the 19th century like 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'. We'll hear versions of this much-loved song from Paul Robeson, Beyonce, Eric Clapton, The Fairfield Four, and Johnny Cash. And we'll discover the coded messages hidden in its lyrics.
TaKeTiNa - Rhythm Consciousness
19/09/2008
Every human life moves to a beat. From the womb to the end of life, we are driven by powerful rhythms which we barely understand - the pulse of our blood, the beat of our heart, the wheeling of the seasons, walking and breathing, sunset and sunrise. Austrian composer and percussionist Reinhard Flatischler calls this the 'forgotten power of rhythm', forgotten because he thinks our natural connection with rhythm has disappeared. Since 1970 Reinhard has been helping people reconnect with their rhythmic consciousness through a method he has devised known as TaKeTiNa. Integrating rhythms, body movement, clapping and vocalizing, TaKeTiNa is according to Reinhard, "a spiritual path using rhythm for the evolution of human consciousness."
It's also a method for healing the body and mind by re-wiring neural pathways through the use of rhythmic patterns. Reinhard himself learned the piano from the age of four and later studied at the Music University Vienna. But after travelling to India to study tabla drumming, he spent three years learning shamanistic techniques with the renowned Korean shaman and master-drummer Kim Suk Chul, and now percussion has become his life. Reinhard with his wife Cornelia was in Australia recently giving TaKeTiNa workshops and I joined the circle of followers hoping to gain an insight into rhythmic body-consciousness.
Life Out of Balance
18/04/2008
Earth Day, celebrated on 22 April each year, is a secular event with spiritual overtones. It marks the founding of the modern environmental movement in 1970, but it also acts as a substitute religious festival drawing on the spiritual yearnings of many environmentalists. This hybrid spirituality was perfectly captured in the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, a cavalcade of visions set to the music of composer Philip Glass. According to the film's director, Godfrey Reggio, 'Koyaanisqatsi' is a Hopi Indian word meaning 'life out of balance' and the film links the earth's degradation to our spiritual disenchantment. Reggio himself spent 14 years with the Catholic Christian Brothers order training to be a monk, while Philip Glass is a Jewish convert to Tibetan Buddhism.
We'll hear the final movement called 'Prophecies' from Glass's soundtrack, and also hear an Australian duo, Jethro and Prem Aliyah Williams who have released four albums under the name Sacred Earth. Their music is deeply meditative, drawing on Hindu mantras, their practice of yoga and meditation, and their own earth consciousness.
