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Q&A with AGNI, a Co-Creative, Transformational Yoga Festival

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From June 2nd to 5th, AGNI Festival will take place on the outskirts of Barcelona. The festival comprises four days and three nights of yoga practices, shamanic ceremonies, ecstatic dance, meditations, healing arts and a range of workshops. It will include an open space for anyone who wants to offer a class, workshop, talk or ceremony.

The Agni Festival is inspired by co-creative transformational festivals around the world, based on creativity and innovation to celebrate life together with a good vibe.

It is organized by NowHere Yoga, a project inspired by the teachings of yoga now coming into a new era of global awareness. We spoke to NowHere Yoga to find out more about this incredible festival.

Q: When did NowHere Yoga start?

A: NowHere Yoga was born in the Monegros desert in 2014 at a festival called Nowhere, the European Regional Burning Man event. Inspired by the participatory, radically inclusive, creatively liberating environment there, we envisioned a yoga project that could bring together our backgrounds in the performing and fine arts with music, yoga, an inclusive and conscious community, and our dedication to presenting powerfully transformative movement and meditation practices in an accessible way.

Based in Barcelona, we started running yoga retreats and events in this area, eventually also branching out to teaching and running retreats internationally. This culminated in our biggest project to date, last year’s inaugural Agni Festival!

Q: What’s the Agni Festival?

A: “Agni” is a Sanskrit word meaning “fire,” not only physical flame but the way we experience fire as a symbol of the power of transformation in the Universe. At Agni Festival we have potent shamanic ceremonies involving fire such as “temazcals” (sweat lodge ceremonies), alongside the nourishing practices of yoga, a range of healers and bodyworkers offering workshops and private sessions, fire dance and performances, live music and DJs, sound healing, talks on everything from Ayurveda and permaculture to making your own soaps and cosmetics, and activities for kids.

So there’s a huge range of experiences to engage with. We understand that everyone has different needs to support their own personal development, and by focusing our attentions collectively in the ways we are doing at Agni we can co-create inspiring and transformative experiences for everyone who comes, no matter age or background.

The feedback we’ve had from people who participated last year has been so amazing to hear – people having breakthroughs in their lives, letting go of old traumas, having wonderful healing treatments, starting new creative projects with people they met there. And if you’ve seen the video of last year, you’ll know we had some great parties too.

An important part of what makes this possible is our focus on collaboration and co-creativity. Inspired by Burning Man, Nowhere and other transformational events which are currently blossoming all over the world, we’ve seen the power of a community of people who share their art, wisdom, work and play together. There’s an amazing creative synergy that emerges out of that space, that can’t be found in a cultural model that is solely focused on the “consumption” of an experience – in the way that we’ve just become very used to in the modern world (and we see everywhere in cinema, concerts, music festivals, etc). There are other ways to come together and more consciously co-create our festival experiences, and we are happy to be able to explore that with the growth of Agni itself.

Q: Why should people attend the Agni Festival?

A: There’s so much on offer at Agni, whether you’re into the yoga or the DJs, whether you’re a kid or an elder, whether you want to camp or prefer the comfort of a room in the house. Last year we felt a wonderful shared sense of beauty, and we know if it calls you at all, there’s something here.

Without being a “Burning Man event” adhering to the 10 Principles these festivals espouse, we feel very inspired by the burn culture and feel that Agni also has a taste of that same flame that burns brightly people learning how to celebrate creatively as a community.

Agni is a celebration of life, of healing, of the power of loving presence. We see the power of conscious community and the growing movements of transformative festivals around the world. We’d love you to come and find your fire too.

Q: Future events from Nowhere Yoga?

A: We are regularly running yoga retreats and events in, around and beyond Barcelona. We then have an intensive in Masía Soronells, a Buddhist retreat centre in Montseny National Park, 28th April-1st May.

After Agni we will be involved in a big Sant Joan celebration (23rd June) fundraising party, for our camp Here & Now that we take to the Monegros in July for the Nowhere festival. At Nowhere we run classes, workshops, talks, and parties, which we’ve used to inspire and develop other projects outside the festival.

We have some international guest teachers coming to Barcelona in April (Simon John Rowe, Prana Vinyasa Yoga) and July (Simon Borg-Olivier, Yoga Synergy), including hosting Simon Borg-Olivier on an immersion yoga retreat for the first time in Spain.

We always keep our future events and activities up on our website. We also send out monthly newsletters.

AGNI will be shining again this year to bring more consciousness to the world. Get tickets here. Or find more info.

Versión en español.