“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being. When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.”
— John Coltrane

This summer, Ars Nova Workshop, The Woodlands, and Spirits Up! will host The Wake, a series of free outdoor yoga and mindfulness sessions paired with live music. We will mold mindfulness, meditation, and movement into each of these sessions while paying homage to many of the foundational forces in Black Liberation Music, such as Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, and John Coltrane. Most sessions will feature Philadelphia harpist Elizabeth Steiner, who has performed with everyone from Orchestra 2001 to Moses Sumney.

The Woodlands historic cemetery at 4000 Woodland Avenue holds over 30,000 of Philadelphia’s most controversial and beautiful spirits. It’s an opportune setting for Spirits Up! — an organization birthed out of reclamation: reclaiming healing, reclaiming health, and reclaiming space —  to lead The Wake and assist the community in returning to this spiritual space, by practicing yoga, meditating, and tapping into deep cultural ties to Philadelphia with the help of transcendent jazz.

We hope to see you this summer, every other Wednesday at The Woodlands starting July 7!

Program Schedule

July 7
Breath Work with Aubrey Beddia + live music by Alexia Oliviera

July 21
Movement and Poetry with Caitlin Green and Ursula Rucker

August 4
Poetry and Music Meditation with Ursula Rucker and Charlie Raboteau

August 18 (rescheduled to August 23)
Sound Meditation and Movement with A’tiya Sinae
<!–RAIN DATE: Please note the program originally scheduled for August 18 has been rescheduled for Monday, August 23, 2021.
Please join us for this special sound meditation and movement session with professional healer A’tiya Sinae. A’Tiya is a yoga instructor, sound healing practitioner, and Reiki healer. Her work is rooted in providing tools that encourage students to step into their power and become fully aligned.–>

September 1 (canceled)
September 15
September 22
Yoga and Black Liberation Music with jean-jacques gabriel and Elizabeth Steiner

<!–Join us throughout September for a series of Yoga and Black Liberation Music (think: Alice Coltrane) with jean-jacques gabriel and acclaimed harpist Elizabeth Steiner, who has collaborated with everyone from Moses Sumney to Orchestra 2001. Teaching yoga and nonviolent communication in prisons rooted jean-jacques’s yoga practice and teaching in justice and freedom. He is the co-creator of a yoga clothing clothing line with Philadelphia Printworks called “The Embodied Collection,” created to honor and inspire the efforts of people of color in creating wellness.–>

Spirits Up!

Spirits Up! is a Philadelphia-based organization that offers tools for personal liberation and healing through yoga, meditation, the arts, and innovative activity to support the continued work towards collective Black liberation. Spirits Up! provides safe spaces for people consistently on the frontlines for Black lives and those long suffering from systemic racial traumas.

Collectively working to heal the black community through yoga & meditation.

By any means necessary.