Utopia / Dystopia: Trance and Possession in Music and Religion

For this fall’s final installation of Utopia / Dystopia, please join us for a discussion of trance and possession in music and religion, featuring Lorraine Sangre, techno DJ and music producer and student of Santeria, and Kristian Leth, musician and writer on spirit possession. Sangre’s talk, ‘Spirit of the Drum: The Language of Music in Santeria,’ will explore possession and ecstasis in relation to religion and music; Sangre will also detail the importance of music in Santeria in practice, in its communicative nature, and in the fundamentals of its essence. Leth, an author with a focus on the overlap and exchange between science and faith, will discuss his own encounter with spirit possession Haiti, situating Vodou in a larger occult context. Lorraine Sangre is a formerly formal student of religion, a currently and ever curious explorer of the spiritual, and self/otherwise assessed natural witch who’s had a lifelong obsession with death. She has been a student of Santeria for several years and is aborisha in the religion as well a pupil of assorted other practices. Collectively all of her interests and areas of study inspire the direction of her creative endeavors, and as well inform her view on the link between these worlds. She is primarily a DJ/producer of techno, industrial, dark electronic music, whose recently born New York City based record label- Orden Extática, speaks to the coalescing of her inspirations. Writer and musician Kristian Leth has written 8 books, among them two bestsellers (in Danish) dealing with the overlap of and exchange between science and faith in our modern world. He has produced radio documentaries for National Danish Broadcasting on spirit possession, rituals and magical practices from Papua New Guinea, Haiti, Scandinavia and New York. He has also written four books of poetry and a novel as well as 10 records of music.