It’s a New Psychedelia!
Marianne Mirage’s invitation to have an experience and a journey, both mental and physical.
By Marianne Mirage
October 26, 2021
Marianne Mirage is an Italian artist. At the age of 7, thanks to her painter father, she approached the world of art and discovered a deep passion for music. During the last two years, the pandemic changed her life, but she managed to create a more personal connection with herself and the art she produces: a new psychedelia. Now, she talks about yoga, sexuality and her new album.
MARIANNE MIRAGE’S POLYHEDRIC PERSONA
I have always been told that being multifaceted would be a big problem for me and, instead, especially with what we have been through in the last two years, it is clear that, in reality, it is a form of enrichment, because where a road ends, there is always another one viable. If I have to line up the things I deal with, art as a whole was my first love, the one that understood everything and from which everything started. My father is a painter, he raised me in freedom. In what has become my disclaimer in recent months, “sex, yoga and rock’n’roll,” we can swap sex for art. For me, art has this great value of freedom, even sexual, which is not granted to us today, for example on social media. The same goes for music, which is my real job and my main occupation. As for yoga, it is of the ways in which I can express myself more fully. In this sense, I like to combine these two things. Yoga and music. Obviously, music was born first because it is my job, the reason why I chose this profession. Yoga is one of the ways in which I can express myself because with the clubs closed it was not possible to share my music so I did it through yoga.
MUSIC AND YOGA: THE CONCEPT OF THE NEW ALBUM
Mirage is a record that comes from a great urge to go beyond certain patterns. It was born in quarantine and this is why I let it grow in the midst of yoga, meditation and plants. I understood from there that music could not stop at the usual structures. I wanted to create something that also accompanied my emotions, my sensations, so not all tracks feature singing. I thought about body and movement as I put it together. Hence the connection with yoga, which was what taught me to free the body. This record wants to invite everyone to have an experience and a journey, both mental and physical, where they probably will dance at home — it is perfect for that. The connection with yoga is evident in the fact that the album, and therefore the songs, are divided into chakras: starting from the lower ones up to the last one, which is the liberation of the senses. The third track of the album is inspired by the second chakra, linked to sensuality, which is why it has very vigorous and soft internal rhythms and the text says: “woman, no one knows your intimate treasures”. I am happy to have chosen this phrase because, as a singer-songwriter, these treasures can be stimulated in many ways: with words, with yoga, with rhythm and also with the support of other women. It is an album that creates connections.
THE CENTRALITY OF WELLNESS TODAY
Sri Aurobindo, an Indian philosopher, says that in civilisation we are commanded by two great forces: avatar, the force of love, which has great propulsion for change, and asura, which instead is the stagnant one that wants to remain still. In this last period, we have noticed how these two forces are always present in any topic. The lockdown, we can’t get out but we want everyone’s rights back as well. The disease, Covid, then let’s love each other more and try to become aware of our body, let’s think about breathing. I am doing these podcasts called “me, balance” which have the intention of teaching people to breathe. To widen the rib cage. Precisely because we had Covid that was worsening lung problems. So as Aurobindo says, I like to think that there are these two forces, these two antagonists and, if it wasn’t obvious before, it is very obvious now and every time we realise that probably just because there has been so much suffering in this year, there has been a much greater need to love each other, to know each other and feel closer.
A NEW PSYCHEDELIA
It is true that the imagery linked to music, in the golden age, was very linked to a certain lifestyle, which was then led to self-destruction. However, in what I do, I somehow find an evolution of a certain world. My inspiration is Janis Joplin, I mean, it is no coincidence that I chose “yoga, sex and rock’n’roll”, in the sense that, in the end, the attitude is the same. Janis Joplin basically taught everyone how to be free. Women have always been forced to be good girls, to remain silent when, for example, they have a very deep sexual energy. All that psychedelia, including substance use, was ultimately just needed to awaken people and teach them to let go. I’m not doing anything different, I just use yoga.
THE YOGA MIRAGE
Yoga Mirage is different from other types of yoga because it represents the true union of yoga with music, understood as an elevating element of one’s emotionality, capable of starting a real journey towards self-awareness. I must thank yoga because it has made me a very aware person and I would like this to become a means for everyone to get to know each other better. In my case, the music, the tantras, the Tibetan bells, the guitar, the use of the voice made me free everything I had inside. I have always used yoga to find creativity, to believe in myself and in my ideas, in my intuitions and with Yoga Mirage, I am trying to return all of this in my classes.
“Yoga Mirage is different from other types of yoga because it represents the true union of yoga with music, understood as an elevating element of one’s emotionality, capable of starting a real journey towards self-awareness.”
COMMITMENT
This is an excellent moment for collective awareness, but we must be very careful not to make some key concepts lose their meaning. An example above all. A word is not enough to embrace sustainability. Being truly sustainable means compromising and I’m feeling it on my skin. I have chosen to be a vegetarian. I have chosen to take constant care of these things and I have also chosen to keep my yoga classes cheap so that they are accessible to everyone, because yoga is not an elite thing, because it still has a cost. I am very close to ANTI-DO-TO’s mission, it is essential to give something back to society and the planet, and this means earning less, but putting in money for the community — it doesn’t matter, it is what we should have all done for some time now but we never did, and that’s what we can really do now. Also, in this point of view there is a basic concept of Indian philosophy: if you take the money for a good reason, part of that money must be reinvested in the great mother, that is, Nature, the planet so that everyone can benefit from it.
