When I emailed Jan Rew Midelfort and Etienne Pierre Duguay asking for an interview about the weekly Yoga party they started this summer on the roof of the Market Hotel in Bushwick, I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to get away with just sending over a list of questions. Duguay–one of the venue’s resident promoters, as well as the drummer for Real Estate and Predator Vision–responded demanding that I arrive at 7:00 pm sharp the following Wednesday to participate in the Yoga class myself. Midelfort–also a musician, and one of the most talented psychedelic music DJ’s I know–added that I should bring my violin along, because it would be “awesome” if I could perform a continuous drone during the New Age music component of the event, which happens after the sun goes down. I did not have the chance to get in touch with Aurora Halal, the event’s third core organizer, but I’m pretty sure she would have responded with yet another suggestion encouraging me nix the habit of passive spectatorship that journalists tend to fall back on.
A cross between a yoga class, a concert, and a safe-space for chatting about the body-mind continuum over raw cookies and a few beers, Body Actualized Control is not only a very unique happening in the North Brooklyn stew of informal DIY events; it is also a resolutely collective and participative one. And that is probably why Midelfort and Duguay insisted on answering my questions together, as a ubiquitous “us.” As you navigate their somewhat free-form philosophical narrative, just remember that Body Actualized Control–like the 21st Century “Nu Age” (or “New New Age”) worldview it incarnates–is precisely what we go ahead and make of it. Soft lighting–see above–and soaring sounds–see list below–are highly recommended.
Dancing? Nude Sun Salutations? Raw food tasting? What goes down on a typical evening at Body Actualized Control?
People show up (ideally) around an hour or less before sundown, chillax, collect their respective vibes, tune in, breathe, and prepare to yogafy in the Nu Age style. Class starts as soon as possible thereafter. We pre-poligize for our tardy starts. Nu Age yoga is (humbly) trying to facilitate the hypnagogic group mind by paying ample attention to VIBE — that is, the overall gestalt, necessarily multifaceted, diverse, and political. All elements of the experience are premeditated, but not forced — laissez-faire? The SOFT vibe is encouraged at all costs.
Yoga basically harmonizes the mind and body through the breath, using it as a means of softly pushing an individual’s boundaries–how far you feel you can go–in each series of positions. As a friend of ours once said, “It’s not how far you go — it’s how you go far.” Knowing your limits while pushing them with a soft intensity is key in life. We try to play music that is pitch-modified to the tempo of a relaxed breath, and feature an ever-evolving playlist of Nu Age, hypnagogic “hits.”
The B.A.C. Cafe includes an evolving menu of experimental (no recipe) raw food treats and appetizeurs, gourmet locally-made liquors, cookies, and probably some surprises in the future. We will hopefully be featuring a raw menu from an up-and-coming raw food company based out of Albany that’s on the futurist tip. Rawesome!
Immediately following yoga, we get into the hermetic performance zone: bands playing in a Nu Age style. But in the future, we are interested in body work sessions, group OMing, spontaneous collaborations, Nu Age movie screenings, cosmic robe-making parties, cosmic dance parties, cosmic Sunday brunch, cosmic spa treatments, and basically whatever our irie minds can tune into!!!
Can you guys give me some background about yourselves? What do you do other than promote weird yoga dance parties?
Besides facilitating events, we are musicians, artists, working people. But more importantly, we are all just instruments in the vast arkestra called “life.”
In the future, the extended family behind this event will be curating vibes all over Nu York (and wherever else), working to help ferment the vibes the future, Now. We shouldn’t wait any longer to get together all the righteous ones under the flag of the loving future vibe; we have to affirm our Second Life every minute of every day. Like Wittgenstein says, “[Every day] you have to break through the dead rubble afresh so as to reach the living warm seed.” And it’s true: we gotta be reborn all the time and eat the living seeds. That’s the kind of animal we are and the kind of world we live in. As the song goes, “It’s a mean old world. You gotta fight to stay in it though. You got to scuffle. You gotta be strong. You gotta do your Thing.”
The Function will be a Funky all-night event in the near future — Funky bands, Funky vibes, Funky location, Thee Funkiest tunes. And we by no means have a strict definition of The Funk; it’s all ad hoc. It’s mainly a reference to the Parliament lyrics, “Do you wanna get off, at the Function?/ I just heard it’s gonna be one of those funky thangs/ do you wanna get off, at the Function?”
How would you describe the philosophy behind Body Actualized Control? What kind of experience are you hoping to facilitate?
Body Actualized Control is a mindset. Everyone is part of Body Actualized Control. It is just another name for one’s relation to discipline, to togetherness, love, the cosmos. Body Actualized Control is knowing that the body is one with the mind and the mind is one with the body. Mental health is really your physical health, and vice versa. A negative thought creates a negative physicality. In the words of our great inspiration, Funkadelic, we need to,
“Listen to the inner voice
A higher wisdom is at work for you
Conqering the stumbling blocks comes easier
When the conqueror is in tune with the infinite
Every ending is a new beginning
Life is an endless unfoldment
Change your mind, and you change your relation to time
You can find the answer
The solution lies within the problem
The answer is in every question
Dig it?
An attitude is all you need to rise and walk away
Inspire yourself
Your life is yours
It fits you like your skin
The oak sleeps in the acorn
The giant sequoia tree sleeps in its tiny seed
The bird waits in the egg
God waits for his unfoldment in man
Fly on, children
Play on
You gravitate to that which you secretly love most
You meet in life the exact reproduction of your own thoughts
There is no chance, coincidence or accident
In a world ruled by law and divine order
You rise as high as your dominant aspiration
You descend to the level of your lowest concept of your self
Free your mind and your ass will follow
The infinite intelligence within you knows the answers
Its nature is to respond to your thoughts
Be careful of the thought-seeds you plant in the garden of your mind
For seeds grow after their kind
Play on, children
Every thought felt as true
Or allowed to be accepted as true by your conscious mind
Take roots in your subconscious
Blossoms sooner or later into an act
And bears its own fruit
Good thoughts bring forth good fruit
Bullshit thoughts rot your meat
Think right, and you can fly
The kingdom of heaven is within
Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
Yeah, that basically sums it up: choose your own reality. Cosmic yoga party is a cosmic setting for cosmic vibes.
How does incorporating yoga into a party setting change the party vibe? On the flipside, how does the party setting change the yoga vibe?
Yoga softens you up for the Nu Age vibes, whatever the may be. The yoga vibe is enhanced by what’s to follow — gives you something to look forward to — something to munch on, with deep nutritional value — someone to talk to, if you’re open-minded — somewhere to chill for a while and vibe on the cookies.
But yeah, yoga is the cumulative knowledge of the almost 4000-year-old Vedic tradition that was trying to unify God and the individual though conscious practice (yoga means “to unify”), and new positions are still being invented today! We are trying as much as possible to go beyond the conventional yoga experience (making it more spiritual?) while still providing an authentic yoga practice.
Nu Age is Real. Explain.
Nu Age as a term is an approximation of a feeling, a gestalt, a vibration — a frequency we all can feel. it’s the ineffable energy, the sixth sense. Science and rationality are presently the only objectivities to organize society by, and we accept this for the time being. But empirical testing and analysis are really just semblances of objectivity. The Real World exists outside of objectivity. Perception determines subjectivity in the Nu Age. We should live in a scientific futurism where we learn to understand the as-yet unknown presences of the universe in a spiritual way–because science can be spiritual. The Pursuit of truth is the most noble endeavor, truth as a paradigm of thought that aligns pragmatically with existence. Without getting too Heideggerian, we must strive to live life according to the essence of existence.
Human thought has created certain rules, laws, mores, meme, norms, etc. that do not align with this essence of life, but that shape our consciousness, regardless. The Nu Age is about realigning these ways of thought. Evolution is constant; semantics are hard to define. The current semantics for thinking about the world are based on so much misalignment. God in a religious sense is not accurate; a redefinition of the word is necessary. More accurately, it signifies the idea that all life and all matter have consciousness and that everything is interconnected in an inconceivable order of complexity that may not follow any determinate pattern–and in this knowledge, living completely positively, because living happily produces happiness. Love is an emotion that transcends all life. It is appreciation and gratitude for what is and can be — to know that to give is to receive
Living in New York is setting up your environment to be around other active people, people who want to succeed at their goals. The idea of chasing your dream. Having a thought and realizing that it could be completely viable, and chasing that dream. To try to become more aligned with a better way of life. To try to understand how your mind can work (with others).
The word “psychic” must be redefined. “Psychic” represents the interconnectedness that all humans feel, the ability to feel how others feel. To receive an image in your mind of another person is feeling. To look someone in the eyes and know what they are thinking — the first thought that comes into your mind is always the truest — to delimit it’s potential. The psychic sense works like the other senses and is incorporated with all our other senses in the synaesthetic ritual of overcoming unconscious pseudo-problems and getting to know oneself better.
The bottom line is that mind and matter are intrinsically tied, being dependent on each other. Consciousness is everywhere, contained on a molecular level — we must become conscious of Consciousness!
Why do you think an event like Body Actualized Control might strike a chord with young people in Brooklyn right now?
Young people are open-minded, and fed up with close-minded vibes; it’s time to open up and say OM! But really, we should all get together and chill. It will get chillier on the roof soon, and we will have to wear more clothes, because market hotel doesn’t have good heating. We may move to a more cozy venue at some point, but the (homemade) spirits will keep us warm, regardless.
But yea, it’s time to Move On, y’all. Are you a Nu Age freak? Then come out and do your thing
Can you recommend any good Nu Age music–past or present–for people who don’t know where to begin?
Classics:
Iasos – interdimensional music through Iasos
Ashra
Stephan Mathieu
Gas – Pop
Laraaji
Anuvida and Nik Tyndall – Reiki – Healing Hands
Steven Halpern – Spectrum Suite
Markus Guentner – In Moll
Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians
Jon Hassell – Vernal Equinox
Swami Kriya Ramananda – Hymn to a New Age
La Monte Young – Raga For Ravi
David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir – Hearing Solar Winds
Steve Hauschildt
Mark Mcguire
John Elliott
Daniel Lopatin
http://crystalvibrations.blogspot.com
Interview with Jan Rew Midelfort and Etienne Pierre Duguay by Emilie Friedlander, Fall 2009.
Photo from an article on Body Actualized Control that recently appeared on Trend Central.
Body Actualized Control usually takes place on Tuesdays at 7pm, but actual party times may vary. To join the mailing list, email Jan at whipsteur [at] gmail [dot] com.
Tags: Aurora Halal, Body Actualized Control, Cosmic Yoga, Etienne Duguay, Hypnagogic Pop, Jan Rew Midelfort, Market Hotel, New Age, Predator Vision, Real Estate