Vibrance™ Expressive Arts : Global Celebration Retreat

A dynamic world musician from Indonesia, Catur has been making and sharing music with communities for as long as he can remember, and has mastered more than twenty instruments spanning drums, strings, and flutes.

He is the founder and teacher of Ubud Drum, a drumming school in Bali. In 2018, Catur traveled to Mali in West Africa to deepen his musical knowledge and experience the traditional context of drumming in the birthplace of the djembe.

He is passionate about uniting traditional music styles, regularly composing and performing works that draw on traditions from Indonesia, West and North Africa, India, and beyond, and recently released his debut solo album, Bali To Mali.

Anna Wijaya is a multifaceted artist from Poland, now residing with her family in the jungles of Ubud, Bali. Her life blends dance, music, family, and spiritual pursuit — she is both a devoted student and a teacher of mantra meditation.

An accomplished dancer, Anna's path deepened into drumming after meeting her husband, Catur, and she is the founder of Matangi, an all-female drumming and singing band whose collective rhythm and voice resonate with empowerment and unity.

Together with Catur, she created Yoga Sound Alchemy, a platform offering classes, workshops, and retreats built around the fusion of music and sound.

Ellen celebrates over three decades on the staff and faculty of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, where she studies, practices, and teaches meditative practice and movement.

She is a teacher of 5Rhythms® (developed by Gabrielle Roth), Holotropic Breathwork, SpiritDanceSoulSong®, Vibrance®, and Touching Essence™.

From 1984 to 2003, Ellen developed and administered the Movement Arts Program at Esalen, and in 1996 she founded MovingVentures, offering workshops, retreats, and training courses in movement and meditation across Bali, China, and beyond.

Ellen created Vibrance™ to awaken students and teachers alike to the idea that music, mantra, breath, dance, and asana are all yoga.

Nick has been a musician and dancer for over twenty years, and has witnessed firsthand the immediate effect of music on people physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

A constant student of global music and culture, he understands music as one of the few languages truly common to all humans. Nick studied sound healing at the Globe Institute in San Francisco, with further qualifications in sound engineering and audio production from the Recording Workshop.

At the Esalen Institute, he is known as a "vibe curator," hosting poolside dance gatherings, fireside musical jams, and sound baths, and he invented The Wavetable, a vibrating acoustic sound bed that lets participants feel the power of frequency on a cellular level.

Born in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, Novie has held a deep connection to music since childhood — shaped by her father, a former drummer, and her grandmother, a Sasando musician and church choir leader.

Guided by her grandmother, Novie began Cha Cha and Waltz lessons at age eight, planting an early appreciation for movement and rhythm.

She believes deeply in the transformative power of music and dance as tools for healing, connection, and emotional expression, and brings traditional Indonesian songs from across the archipelago into her teaching.

A Balinese woman raised close to rich culture, art, tradition, and spirituality, Ari carries these roots the way a tree carries its ground, quiet and steady.

Singing has always lived near her heart, a way she finds comfort, expresses what she feels, and returns to herself, imperfect and present rather than performed.

Through years of work and volunteering alongside women, mothers, and children, she learned the quiet power of simply showing up for one another. Ari shares Bali through music, gentle tradition, and story, creating space for women to slow down and feel at home in themselves.