Namaste on the dance floor

Celeb yogis and mantra MCs take on the Texas Yoga Conference

Are you ready to get your yoga on?

This weekend, over 1,000 yogis will descend upon University of St. Thomas for a three-day yogasm of 72 workshops, live music and good vibes. It's all part of the second annual Texas Yoga Conference, running Friday through Sunday.

"It's a community event that we hope will show that Houston is a mecca for yoga," Jennifer Buergermeister, the director of CuraYoga and the event's founder, tells CultureMap. For Buergermeister, the city is a perfect fit for yoga enthusiasts.

"We have these amazing medical professionals," she says. "Also, Houston really is a diverse, cultural city. Every language on the planet is spoken here. It's the unity among all of these cultures that allies with yoga."

With this sentiment, Buergermeister arranged for a lunch with other yoga leaders in the city over a year ago, from which the first Texas Yoga Conference spawned.

"We were in a private room at Miyako, 11 or 12 of us, all sitting in lotus position," she recalls. Their discussion led to the 2010 conference. Now in its second year, the event has already doubled in capacity.

This year's rendition, held Friday through Sunday, is themed "Yoga is for Everybody!" While the conference will attract an international audience, local yogis will recognize a few familiar names among the instructors, such as Robert Boustany, Misha Laird, Julie Byrd, Amy Garratt, Ann Hyde and Catherine Allen. Also making a cameo on the red yoga mat carpet is Yoga Journal's November 2010 cover model and Texas native, KK Ledford.

While there will be scores of practice sessions, there's also a focus on fun. Participants will enjoy the talents of a belly dancer, massage therapist and henna artist. On Saturday, there will be a live performance by MC Yogi, a full-time yoga teacher and performing artist, who fuses his knowledge of yoga with a passion for hip hop music.

"He's pretty famous in our world of yoga," Buergermeister says. "He's really hip."

Also on tap for live music is a Friday night engagement with Sean Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band, following a Laughing Lotus yoga class with Dana Plynn and DJ Hyfi in the St. Thomas Jerabeck Athletic Center's Scanlan Room. Houston-based DJ Sun will spin live during one of the asana practices, and NYC's DJ Hyfi will take a turn at the turntable as well.

While the introduction of beats to the yoga studio may sound like a novel idea, the convention's organizers suggest that modern mystics, truth seekers and urban yogis are increasingly receptive to mantra music mingling with the mainstream.

Tickets to the conference, ranging from $80 to $290, are available at texasyogaconference.com. Tickets to just MC Yogi are available for $25.

unspecified

Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

undefined

Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”