On Tuesday, April 19 at 7:00 pm, a “Viola-do” workshop, targeted for both string and aikido players on the topic of playing viola (or any musical instrument) and its parallels with the Aiki Way, will take place in Fulton Recital Hall.

The workshop will be led by Masumi Per Rostad, Aiki-playing viola master and Violist of the Pacifica Quartet, and Donald Levine, Viola-plaing aikido sensei, Yondan, 4th-degree black belt, and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and the College.

Professor Levine’s description of the event is below.  The event is free.  Advance sign-up is recommended (but not required):  please e-mail violado@uchicago.edu.  Bring your instruments, and dress comfortably.

The Viola-do Workshop

Both performing and listening to music are activities that involve a coordination of mental, emotional, and bodily processes. In the course of many years of studying, performing, and teaching the art of viola playing, Masumi Per Rostad developed a repertoire of ideas for how to develop these faculties and integrate them more harmoniously.

The integration of mind and body constitutes a central principle in the practice of aikido, sometimes glossed as the Martial Art of Peace. Through his years of studying, practicing, and teaching aikido, Donald Levine acquired a repertoire of comparable ideas.

Independently, the two of them came upon the idea of connecting music and aikido more formally. Through a number of conversations and joint practices, they developed the curriculum of a mini-workshop, which has been offered successfully at the music departments of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.

The Viola-do Workshops involve a sequence of parallel presentations. These involve parallel exercises in preparing to play, playing solo, and playing with others. The exercises offer ways to: take stock of one’s level of being centered, move with good posture, receive one’s instrument/partner, use and release tensions, maintain fluidity, connect with others, and play/live harmoniously. Students who attended these workshops have found them of value, both for enriching the quality of instrumental and vocal performance and for enhancing the harmony of their interactions with others.