Gabrielle Roth is a musician, author, music director, dancer, philosopher and recording artist in the world music and trance dance genres, with a special interest in shamanism. Known as the "urban shaman", she is music director of the theatre company The Mirrors and has been a member of the Actor's Studio. She is the founder of the recording label Raven Recordings. She has been a faculty member of both Kripalu Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health - Programs : All Programs and the Esalen Institute and offers classes at the Omega Institute, often joined by her son, Jonathan Horan. Her international institute, The Moving Center. oversees the teaching of her work through schools in New York and California and has certified over 300 teachers worldwide. She is currently teaching experimental theater in New York based on The Roth 5Rhythms and training others to use shamanic methods within artistic, education, and healing contexts.
Roth has directed Off-Off Broadway for the One Act Theater Co. and has been a member of the PDU of the Actor’s Studio. She most recently directed productions of Savage Love, by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, at The Culture Project (New York City), One Arm Red (Brooklyn) and the Hip Pocket Theater (Ft Worth, Texas).
Roth is the author of three books: Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman, Sweat Your Prayers, and Connections: The 5 Threads of Intuitive Wisdom, and her work has been featured in Self, Elle, Mademoiselle, Bazaar, Donna Karan's Woman to Woman, Utne Reader, New Age Journal, Body Mind Spirit, Shape Magazine, Fitness and many other national publications.
Roth performs and records as Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors, and has produced over 15 albums and appeared on various compilations. Longtime Mirrors regulars include drummers Sanga of the Valley (a student of master Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji) and Roth's husband and producer Robert Ansell. Over the years, other contributors and collaborators have included composer/guitarist Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Band); Allison Cornell on strings (of Joe Jackson and Pat Benatar); Jai Uttal (Indian fusion musician); space music composer Raphael; Boris Grebenshikov; and percussionists Gordy Ryan, Arthur Hull, Steven Scales (Talking Heads), and Cyro Baptista (of Paul Simon and Laurie Anderson and of the band Beat the Donkey).
Roth founded The Moving Center School in 1987 in Mill Valley, California. It now has a branch in New York. The Mill Valley school was co-founded by Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzmann and Andrea Juhan.
Connections: The 5 Threads of Intuitive Wisdom (2004) Tarcher ISBN 1585423270, ISBN 978-1585423279
Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman (with John Loudon) (1989) New World Library (Penguin Group) ISBN 0931432529, ISBN 978-0931432521
Quest: The Spiritual Path to Success by Stephen R. Covey (Editor) (1997), with Thomas Moore, Mark Victor Hansen, David Whyte, Bernie Siegel, and Marianne Williamson. Simon & Schuster AudioBook ISBN 9780671574840
Sweat Your Prayers: Movement as Spiritual Practice (1998) Tarcher ISBN 0874779596, ISBN 978-0874779592
Secret Egypt (1995) Mystic Fire Video (Directed by Sheldon Rochlin)
The Spiritual Path to Success (1997) Quest special on PBS (now part of the Quest Life Trilogy, only available as part of the Quest Wisdom Collection). Quest The Journey
Sukhavati: A Mythic Journey (1997 [music]) [DVD Released 2005] for Joseph Campbell Foundation and PBS (Produced, Directed, and Edited by Maxine Harris and Sheldon Rochlin).
The Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD Released 2004)
The Power Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD Released 2005)
The Inner Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD Released 2005)
Ecstatic Dance Trilogy (2004) Sounds True
Dances of Ecstasy (2003) [featuring: Michelle Mahrer, Nicole Ma and Gabrielle Roth] BBC / Opus Arte
Open Floor: Dance, Therapy & Transformation (2002) Raven Recording