Performance - Sound Bath with Mona Ruijs

Artist Mona Ruijs will facilitate a sound immersive experience with gongs, quartz crystal bowls, Himalayan singing bowls and various other sound tools that are designed to induce profound physical relaxation, and contemplative states. Lying down on mats you will be saturated and cocooned in the live sounds as you enter inside the wonderful world of the sound bath.

The joy of a sound bath is the opportunity for you to lay, listen deeply with your whole body and go inwards, as you may access a consciousness that lies between sleeping and waking. Here you may be transported to states of stillness, meditation, bliss, altered states of awareness, and self-healing. Sound bath participants variously report powerful bodily sensations and brain states often accompanied by creative thought, rich imagery, insights, and feelings of rest and timelessness.

This unique composition of frequencies and harmonics produces a soundscape that washes over you, with the intention to release bodily tension and produce a relaxation response lowering stress, cortisol and adrenaline levels. We invite you to explore new ways of listening and responding, as the ear hears, the brain listens and the body senses vibrations.

About the Artist
Mona Ruijs is a gong practitioner trained in Devon, UK. Inviting participants to close their eyes and open their ears, she curates a unique experience into sound and the senses, and an exploration of ‘the listening body’. Mona spent 12 years abroad in Berlin and London where she developed her craft, and facilitated sound baths, gong concerts and deep listening events.

After completing her dissertation ‘Resonating Gongs: The Integration of Gongs into Sound Therapy’ with the Music faculty at the London Metropolitan University, she studied with Grand Gong Master Don Conreaux. Mona went on to train student sound practitioners at The Northern School of Soundsmiths in Manchester.

In 2018 she is delighted to have returned to Australia to share her sound practice, where she has presented her work at Melbourne Music Week and ABC National Radio. Mona is continually exploring how the ear hears, the brain listens and the body senses vibration.