There's world music, and there's sacred music, but what is world sacred music?
It's music from across the globe that hits a certain spiritual tone. Think gospel, Gregorian chants, South Asian qawwali and aboriginal didgeridoo.
It's also a festival that kicks off today: The World Festival of Sacred Music spans most of the Los Angeles area and a bit beyond, with an Indian drum concert Sept. 30 in Irvine. One thousand artists from Siberia to Africa to the Czech Republic are scheduled to perform at 43 events through Oct. 2.
Today's opening event is a Sacred World Benefit Concert starting at 5 p.m. and featuring seven international groups at the UCLA Sunset Canyon Recreation Center's outdoor amphitheater.
For Judy Mitoma, director of the sacred music festival since 1999, creating this gathering has been a way to foster community in a region where people are divided by neighborhood, class, code-enforced gates and freeways.
"Festivals have always struck me as a means for societies to build community, for a common cause," said Mitoma, director of the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance and a professor of dance. "The festival is inevitably tied to faith, religion and spirit, and of course, society and community."
This year's World Festival of Sacred Music brings together musicians and dancers from every continent and numerous spiritual traditions, from Islam to Christianity to tribal, indigenous faiths.
Gonja Dreams - performing at tonight's UCLA opening - is a collective from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Cameroon, Brazil and the United States.
Members of the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple in Hollywood will present an evening of kirtan, or devotional chanting, accompanied by harmonium, tablas, cymbals and bells. The free event is planned for 7 p.m. Friday.
Aum-Sho-Namah - three dance and percussion companies hailing from India, Iran and Japan - will share the stage Sept. 25 at the James Armstrong Theatre in the Torrance Cultural Arts Center.
"For me, sacred music is a (synonym) for everything that's wonderful about music and dance," said Viji Prakash, director of the L.A.-based Shakti Dance Company, part of Aum-Sho-Namah. "There's a sense of universality in all music and dance forms. There's a certain underlying current of oneness in all of these art forms."
AUSPICIOUS BEGINNINGS
The World Festival of Sacred Music started with a simple letter in 1997. It was from the Dalai Lama, asking recipients to usher in the new millennium with the spirit of world peace and reconciliation.
"The first festival was really galvanized by the sheer respect for His Holiness the Dalai Lama," Mitoma said. "While His Holiness is a world-renowned individual, we have to take responsibility for putting those messages out."
Mitoma pulled together artists from around the globe and organized 85 events in 1999 - a bigger festival than the one that starts today. The 2002 fest featured 54 events.
"There was a strong response, but we learned that bigger is not better," she said. "By having fewer events, we can provide more attention and we can ensure very excellent quality."
Still, 43 events makes this gathering one of the largest regional festivals in Southern California.
KNUA, a Korean traditional performing arts troupe, will share Korea's Buddhist and shamanistic traditions in music and dance at UCLA tonight. Two folkloricodance groups will offer dances from Mexico and Latin America at Whittier College on Sunday. And composer Jim Berenholtz will present ancient Egyptian and Hebrew texts set to contemporary music in "The Psalms of Ra" at the Alchemy Building in Los Angeles on Sept. 26.
Berenholtz, a former Laguna Beach resident, will be joined onstage by more than 25 other musicians. They will combine verses from the Bible's Psalms and the Egyptian Book of the Dead with traditional Middle Eastern instruments and Western classical music.
"We're going to present the event in a very ceremonial way," he said. "Throughout history, music has been used in connection with religion and spirituality. It expresses our connection with the divine. Music as entertainment is something that's a lot newer."
In a time of war and disaster, Berenholtz believes that music - sacred music in particular - is a way for people to recharge and tap into the energy of their better selves.
"People in the modern world tend to lose connections with nature and forget some of the core things that really make us human," he said. "I see an event like this as kind of a way to help people reconnect with a more essential part of their humanity."
THE LOCAL CONNECTION
On Sept. 30, musicians from north and south India will congregate at the Irvine Barclay Theatre for "Sacred Drums of India." Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri will play tablas; Vidwan T.H. Subash Chandran will play ghatam(clay pot) and deliver "vocal percussion"; Ganesh Kumar will play tambourine and Jim Santi Owen will play morsing, a south Indian mouth harp.
Owen, a Southern California native and student of the above masters, helps lead a percussion group called Tabla Rasa, which is performing in the first half of the show.
"All creation is vibration, basically coming from the big bang until now," the 34-year-old musician said. "There's no higher high than playing this music. Also for the audience, it's unbelievable. People are so uplifted by it."
Owen said music can be a balm in a troubled and violent world.
"Anything that promotes a sense of serenity, peace and joy is very, very important. In a more general sense, just to enjoy it, it becomes very difficult to then dehumanize people (from different cultures). The spiritual aspect is very important in terms of cultural awareness."
For the finale, a large closing celebration is planned Oct. 2 at the water's edge on Santa Monica Beach. "Honoring the Sea" is expected to feature 300 artists presenting sacred traditions from five global lineages - Africa, Brazil, Hawaii, Italy and native America. Each group will prepare an offering to the sea at sites on the shore and sand and in the water.
Festival director Mitoma hopes these events will allow people to travel to unfamiliar places, interact with unfamiliar people, and get in touch with themselves.
"In our highly technical urban lifestyle, people are searching for, and feel a need for, deeper grounding," she said. "We are so subject to the mediated world that there are not enough opportunities for people to feel direct experience of the ethical, spiritual, intuitive mode.
"Music has the ability to cut through and create a space where we can take a moment and rethink things."
For a complete schedule, visit www.festivalofsacredmusic.org
