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Gabrielle Roth, known as the "urban shaman," is music director of the Mirrors. Her primal trance-dance music grew from her involvement with ballet, drama, movement therapy, ritual, and shamanic principles. The cultural melting pot of New York City and the emerging consciousness scene at California's Esalen Institute also helped shape Roth's style. As Roth encouraged her dance students to move and emote, she noticed a natural rhythmic progression, which she calls The Wave or the 5 Rhythms. She saw that many of life's events, such as childbirth and lovemaking, moved from flowing to staccato to chaos to lyrical and then to stillness. Dancing to these natural rhythms could move beyond the ego's personality and help catalyze and release the emotions of fear, anger, grief, joy, and peace -- ending with the state of ecstasy.
Roth's slogan, "Sweat Your Prayers," epitomizes her approach to both her movement workshops and recordings, released on her Raven Recording label. "We can dance our prayers and sweat our pain," says Roth. "Prayer is like letting go of everything that impedes the inner silence, of the tone, the OM, the essence of self and soul. Each of the five rhythms represents a state of being, and being is the language of existence. Movement, then, is our medicine and our path to ecstasy. So The Wave is how I pray. "
Roth's recordings began from her work with the rock & roll band of her New York ritual theatre company, the Mirrors. "The first two albums I wrote were tribal rock and roll," she explains, "but then we decided to make simpler, primal recordings, like the music I used for my movement workshops. That's how Totem was born in 1985. This album was a groundbreaker; at that time the New Age stores could not relate to rhythms and drums as a spiritual path. Totem changed that." Roth seldom plays on her albums, but as music director, she assembles musicians appropriate for each concept and "conducts" the music by moving. Longtime Mirrors regulars include drummers Sanga of the Valley, a student of master Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunje, and Roth's husband and producer Robert Ansell. Over the years, other contributors have included composer/guitarist Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Band); Allison Cornell, strings (of Joe Jackson and Pat Benatar); Jai Uttal (Indian fusion musician); space music composer Raphael; and percussionists Gordy Ryan, Arthur Hull, and Cyro Baptista (of Paul Simon and Laurie Anderson).
Several of Roth's albums present musical workouts of entire 5 Rhythms: Initiation, Bones, Trance, and The Endless Wave: Vol. I, (the soundtrack from her video dance workout, The Wave). Other albums emphasize single rhythms: Stillpoint (stillness), Waves (chaos), and Ritual (flowing). Luna, a finalist for the 1994 INDIE Best New Age Album, explores women's mysteries, while Tongues incorporates primal vocal chanting. 1997's Zone Unknown uses techno tracks for the first time. "You'll still know Zone Unknown is the Mirrors," says the group's drummer and producer Robert Ansell, "but we will push to new territory." For more information about Roth's rhythm work, read her book Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman (Nataraj Publishing).
from Wikipedia:
Gabrielle Roth (born February 4, 1941) is a musician, author, music director, dancer, philosopher and recording artist in the world music and trance dance genres, with a special interest in shamanism. Known as the "urban shaman", she is music director of the theatre company The Mirrors and has been a member of the Actor's Studio. She is the founder of the recording label Raven Recordings. She has been a faculty member of both Kripalu and the Esalen Institute and offers classes at the Omega Institute, often joined by her son, Jonathan Horan. Her international institute, The Moving Center. oversees the teaching of her work through schools in New York and California and has certified over 300 teachers worldwide. She is currently teaching experimental theater in New York based on The Roth 5Rhythms and training others to use shamanic methods within artistic, education, and healing contexts.
Directing
Roth has directed Off-Off Broadway for the One Act Theater Co. and has been a member of the PDU of the Actor’s Studio. She most recently directed productions of Savage Love, by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, at The Culture Project (New York City), One Arm Red (Brooklyn) and the Hip Pocket Theater (Ft Worth, Texas).
Writings
Roth is the author of three books: Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman, Sweat Your Prayers, and Connections: The 5 Threads of Intuitive Wisdom, and her work has been featured in Self, Elle, Mademoiselle, Bazaar, Donna Karan's Woman to Woman, Utne Reader, New Age Journal, Body Mind Spirit, Shape Magazine, Fitness and many other national publications.
Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors
Roth performs and records as Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors, and has produced over 15 albums and appeared on various compilations. Longtime Mirrors regulars include drummers Sanga of the Valley (a student of master Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji) and Roth's husband and producer Robert Ansell. Over the years, other contributors and collaborators have included composer/guitarist Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Band); Allison Cornell on strings (of Joe Jackson and Pat Benatar); Jai Uttal (Indian fusion musician); space music composer Raphael; Boris Grebenshikov; and percussionists Gordy Ryan, Arthur Hull, Steven Scales (Talking Heads), and Cyro Baptista (of Paul Simon and Laurie Anderson and of the band Beat the Donkey).
The Moving Center School
Roth founded The Moving Center School in 1987 in Mill Valley, California. It now has a branch in New York. The Mill Valley school was co-founded by Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzmann and Andrea Juhan.
