The chants on Francesca Genco‘s CD Numinous River are
the catchy kind that you hum while washing dishes hours after hearing
them, even if you can’t understand Sanskrit and even if you don’t know
Shiva from Kali or Lakshmi or the other Hindu deities whom they hail.
The lilting contralto in which Genco sings helps. It might even also
heal.
Having grown up in a musical family, Genco had been teaching yoga
and performing improvisational singing for years when a friend showed
her how to combine both passions by chanting with the help of the sruti
box, a hand-cranked laptop harmonium that emits a pulsating consistent
chord.
“When the British arrived in India to convert the Hindus, they
brought pump organs to accompany their hymns,” Genco explained. “The
Indians saw the benefit of the instrument and chopped its legs off so
that they could sit cross-legged on the ground while playing it.” Sruti
box in hand, “I felt immediately drawn to chanting and wanted to engage
in it.” From her experience with Zen Buddhism, she knew the
transformative effect of intoned sutras. From her experience with yoga,
she knew the sounds of Sanskrit, which are said to vibrate in a unique
way that purifies and energizes the chakras. Soon she had moved from
solo chanting to leading chant circles. While traditional Indian
kirtan chanting is call-and-response, Genco prefers a group
effort.
“I’m interested in giving people the opportunity to find their own
expression through chanting,” she marveled. “We co-create the sound.
Yes, I’m leading. But I’m also responding. That’s the beauty of it.
They come up with things I could never think of.”
In the circles, participants offer words, phrases, rhythms, and
tunes from cultures around the world. Chanting, after all, has been a
key part of myriad spiritual traditions for thousands of years.
“The syllables themselves have power,” Genco said. “The names hold a
power that evokes certain qualities in the body.” Repetitive chants
resonate through the head, bones, organs, and skin, she asserted. “The
resonance sets up a frequency and holds that frequency. When I chant,
it definitely changes my brainwaves and puts me into a place where I
feel more spacious energetically, spiritually, and physically. I
experience this as an opening and a widening of myself.”
Sometimes she co-leads circles with a didgeridoo player and a
clarinetist. Sometimes they spread what they call a “healing blanket”
in front of the musicians, inviting participants to spread out on the
blanket. “It’s really nice,” Genco said, “just to lie down and receive
a sound.”
At 4th Street Yoga (1809 4th St. #C, Berkeley) on Saturday,
October 10, she teaches the first in a three-part series of workshops
called “Singing the Body: Finding Your Voice in Chant and Sound
Healing.” Also a dancer and a trained bodyworker, Genco aims to
help participants use what she calls “their embodied voice.”
As the course begins, “I ask them to just lie on the floor, close
their eyes, and get a sense of themselves physically. We’re in culture
that is in certain ways disembodied. … But once you explore the
intelligence of your body — which is accessible if you learn
the language of it — then you can find out how and where sound
resonates through it, just as you would familiarize yourself with any
instrument you’d want to play. You have to look at it. You have to
touch it.” 2:30 p.m., $70-$150. Preregistration is recommended; e-mail
[email protected].
4thStreetYoga.com
