City Shamans
City Shamans (Joshua Doerksen) is an artist who combines world instrumentation, traditional chants, vocal looping, and electronic tones into a digital tribal sound. His music guides the listener through a dreamlike journey of sonic textures and primal rhythms that invoke a state of transcendental awareness while dancing, meditating, or practicing yoga. This experience of altered reality or trance is referred to by aboriginal cultures as the “dream time” or “spirit realm”, where the free flow of unfiltered self-‐ expression leads to truth, insight, and awakening.
Growing up, Joshua was immersed in aboriginal culture, and took part in a number of spiritual and shamanic rituals and practices. Through his journey as a young shaman, he was exposed to many traditional styles of world music, which were often used for healing ceremonies. He went on to complete a university degree in classical composition and opera, and continues to explore many genres as a singer-‐songwriter. While improvising electronic music with a loop pedal, Joshua discovered that he could incorporate tribal rhythms and chants into his sound, and City Shamans was born.
City Shamans believes in the healing power of dance and music, and through his writing and live performances, he draws a 
connection between traditional ceremony and the modern ritual of clubbing and attending music festivals.
City Shamans currently performs with DJs and drummers, and for yoga and meditation classes; he also collaborates with artists in other mediums such as dancing and painting. This past summer (2014), he worked with students from the National Ballet School of Canada to create an improvised music and dance public performance piece called “Melodia”. He also participated in Barrie’s Street Performers Program, in which he performed live for a number of city events and summer festivals. Moving forward, City Shamans plans to tour his new album within Canada and Europe, where the live performance EDM scene is exploding.
Saturday 630pm
