I began performing Yogadance in the early 90's. Yoga was not yet main stream and people were confused what they were seeing. Was this gymnastics? Maintaining Yogadance classes at that time was difficult as there wasn't enough of a base to support ongoing classes. However, I continued to work on my own and not surprisingly created mostly solos. I knew posture work intimately, had extensive movement training, and I always showed up for rehearsal.
More than 20 years later, I was asked to teach Yogadance at last year's Northwest Yoga Conference. Turns out it was the most often requested workshop. Working with the students in the conference I realized yoga had become so ubiquitous that postures were now a commonly understood framework, and when I said "Trikonasana", everyone knew what I meant. This freed me to focus on what what I loved: on how to move (vinyasa), and on how to listen and respond to music (dance).
From that experience, the "Yogadance Video Project" was born. I created a two day workshop with the intent of documenting the process of combining yoga asana with movement and music, and filming a full scale production of a group piece. The participants had a broad range of yoga and dance experience, and the result of the workshop is this video, "Taj Yogadance: Dance Your Asana."
My undying thanks to my producer Peter Howland and his very talented crew (Tom Sturge, Hollywood lights, Joe Linton) who "got" what I wanted and made it happen. And to the people who signed up for the workshop, for among other things, they did six and a half million "bunny hops". I have no doubt they were very sore the next day, but they did me proud: April Kieburtz, Autumn Needles, Binka Popov, Carol Sanders, Cheryl Davis, Elfie Luther, Heidi Krotzer, Julia Dean, Margaret Ann Gregerson, Melina Stasuik , Michelle Befus, Rich Williams, Robin Werner, Sheryl Woolover.