The Wanderlust Festival provided both live music and yoga classes in a newly launched program held in Squaw Valley, California. The festival is from July 24-26.

California’s Wonderlust Festival Makes Balance Its Weekend Mantra

Beneath a starry sky here on Friday, on a stage underneath a ski lift, Sharon Jones, the powerhouse singer of the funk-soul band the Dap-Kings, was nearly ready to perform. “What I need to do now,” she told the audience, “is loosen my body up, get the blood flowing.”

She had come to the right place. The next afternoon the same stage was taken up by Shiva Rea, a powerhouse yoga teacher. Accompanied by a live band, she led a class in flowing poses, encouraging many of the same people who had danced along with Jones to open their heart center and breathe.

The lithe-bodied audience had gathered here for Wanderlust, a new festival that blends indie rock and yoga. From July 24- 26, visitors could study self-massage and meditation early each morning and hear groups like Broken Social Scene, Girl Talk and Spoon at night.

The setting — the verdant hills of Squaw Valley, a ski resort, usually empty off-season — provided an almost surreally beautiful natural backdrop. All of the concerts and many of the yoga classes were held outdoors; the main stage for music was 2500 meters up a mountain, reachable only by gondola. When they weren’t practicing vinyasa poses or singing along to Gillian Welch, festivalgoers in stretchy outfits could shop for recycled clothing or snack on organic melon in a village-style marketplace.

“We want people to leave feeling better than they did when they came, transformed in some positive way,” said Jeff Krasno, a music executive who created the festival with his wife, Schuyler Grant, a yoga teacher. She said their vision was “to incorporate the exuberance and the joy and the fun of a music festival, and the deeper experience of a yoga retreat,” adding: “To go to a three-day fairly hedonistic experience where you’re going to be drinking, probably and smoking a joint, maybe, and dancing all night and then do yoga and walk away feeling good, how cool would that be?’’

The couple, who live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, programmed the festival to their taste. That meant consciously avoiding spiritual, chanting acts in favor of indie pillars like Andrew Bird and Jenny Lewis. On the yoga side, they booked teachers whom Grant called “rock stars,” like Rea, from California, and John Friend, from Texas, who tour regularly. They received headliner billing alongside the bands, and drew just as many attendees.

Krasno, 38, and Grant, 39, also envisioned Wanderlust as a way to capitalize on movements that started as subcultures and have now become mainstays, from yoga to indie rock to environmentalism. “Balance” was the weekend’s mantra.

It seems to have worked: More than 4,000 people showed up, Krasno said, most from the Southwest and California, paying $25 to $165 for tickets to the music or the yoga. About 1,500 of those bought $170 passes that entitled them to experience both: manna to cool-seeking sponsors like Target.

Though it wasn’t quite enough to break even, Krasno said his partners, which include the companies behind more established festivals like Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Austin City Limits in Texas, are already considering expanding Wanderlust next year, to three events on three mountaintops.

But let’s pause for a cleansing breath here: Can you really party all night and downward dog all day?

“Frankly, when I heard about it,” said Bird, the singer and multi-instrumentalist who was a headliner on Sunday, “my first reaction was, is that going to work, because some of the bands don’t exactly spell inner peace, musically — nor do I, lyrically.”

He was persuaded to join not because he’s a yoga fanatic (“most of the moves hurt”) but because the festival’s setting provided a distinctive experience, even for a tour veteran. And he figured the audience would be receptive to the show he wanted to play. “It’s a little more ambient, let it wash over you,” he said.

He was right. His set, played on borrowed instruments after his didn’t arrive, got the crowd to hush and listen, even amid the distractions: a lake to skinny-dip in, Frisbee games to join and Hula-Hoops to twirl and twirl.

Gregg Gillis, the mash-up artist who performs as Girl Talk, and whose shows resemble a raunchy spring break party, is about as far removed from peacefulness as possible. But many festivalgoers said they got the same rejuvenating charge from raucous dancing as from mindful breathing.

“These are audiences with open minds,” Gillis said. “Even if they’re not into it, they’re not there to critique it.” 


NY Times

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