There is a palpable excitement in the air before a Mirabai Ceiba concert. The concertgoers flitter from ticket table, to CD table, to their chairs with a buzzing enthusiasm. Those sitting on the floor find cushions and do a few yoga stretches for their hips and hamstrings. The anticipation of feeling good has taken over.
That is really what a Mirabai Ceiba concert is about…feeling good. There is something magical about the combination of Angelika Baumbach and Markus Seiber. It may be that their love story is so profound it spills over the stage and out into the audience, making you catch on fire with love, too. It may be that their devotion to the Divine is so authentic that you remember to honor it authentically, too. It may be that their lush voices and skillful dance with instruments ranging from the guitar to the harmonium to the harp is so special and pure that you feel the sacred sound current in such a precise way and become the sound current; your heartbeat begins to beat with the rhythm of the tabla and your blood flows with the melody of their song. It may be all of these things.
On this night in Titusville, New Jersey, after the mood was set with an opening act featuring a lovely singer of Kabbalah kirtan named Yofiyah who invoked the ancient prayers of the Hebrew language, Markus and Angelika settled onto the stage like a couple coming home again. Years ago, their eyes touched in the crowd at a street fair in Barcelona, and their love took hold of them. They began to make music in the streets. You can tell it is their destiny, to sit on the ground in front of you and share the divine through song. In the audience, you also feel a sense of destiny or good karma or both to be able to listen. They opened with a prayer for the earth and the oceans, and as Mirabai began to sing “Ocean,” many people in the audience fell into trance. It’s a beautiful concept they sing of…that the ocean refuses no rivers, just as God refuses no souls. There was a collective blessing from the audience that went to the ocean and many held consciousness for the Gulf of Mexico. The audience prayed aloud with the song focusing our vibrations on healing the waters of the Earth. Just as Angelika began to sing “Sa Ta Na Ma” to follow, the sky opened such a downpour of rain that reverberated on the windows of the church with sudden intensity. Everyone burst into a smile. That’s the kind of synergy and group prayer that is a Mirabai Ceiba kirtan. It is so much more than a concert.
We were blessed that night with classical Indian dance by a young woman named Dhanya Salem, who looked like a temple dancer in India responding to the ancient words that hung in the air with her body. There was a synergy of artists, singers, dancers and the audience, and we came together to raise the vibration of that little corner in the world as best we could. Mirabai Ceiba sang their hearts out, and many in the audience sang their hearts out too, coaxing them out of shells and out from behind walls until all hearts sang and danced in the rain, in the moonlight, in the light of the soul. Par for the course at Mirabai Ceiba Live in Concert. Don’t miss it.
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