Alice Coltrane's Ashram

AWAKE & AWARE is a conscious cinema program that presents opportunities to see and understand the relations between things, people, and processes, things that we usually cannot see completely because our perception of or circumstance.

THE SCHEDULE:

• 11:45am – Doors Open• 12:15pm – Live musical performance by INTINAAD, a group of south Florida musicians rooted in the practice of Yoga, Meditation and Kirtan that connects to the Heart, Soul and the Divine when they play• 1:00pm – Film Starts• 1:30pm – Post-Screening Q&A with original Ashram member & singer Purushattama Hickson

THE FILM:

Made by the French filmmakers Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon (in partnership with Boiler Room & Luaka Bop), ALICE COLTRANE'S ASHRAM is a contemporaneous portrait of the community at the Sai Anantam Ashram. Following its foundation in 1983, a multi-ethnic and multi-generational spiritual community. Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon - Ashram emerged there. A highpoint of the practice took shape on Sundays when Alice would lead this very special and loving community in a musical ceremony. It was something extraordinarily powerful. On October 4th, ten years after Alice Coltrane’s passing, the Ashram officially closed. However, the work of Swamini Alice Coltrane Turiysangitananda will keep on spreading and the spirit of the Ashram lives on. With this film, we hope to support that.Alice Coltrane was a legendary jazz musician, composer, and the wife of John Coltrane, the most venerated and influential saxophonist in the history of jazz. In 1967, John died, leaving Alice a widow with four small children. Bereft of her soul mate Alice turned to Indian spirituality, eventually opening the Shanti Anantam Ashram. By then she had recorded more than a dozen records and was acclaimed for her work as a musician, composer, and bandleader.Music was the foundation of Alice’s spiritual practice and during this time she released music inspired by jazz, the gospel music of the Detroit churches she grew up in, mixed with the Indian devotional music of her religious practice. Originally only made available through her ashram, these recordings were her most obscure body of work until the music was released widely to the public last year by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop record label on the compilation entitled The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane.Turiyasangitananda: The Ashram Experience will be performing on Friday, October 12, 2018 8:00pm as part of Rhythm Foundation’s This Is Our Music Concert Series! Click here for info & tickets!