The Woman Who Brought Yoga to the West

When the woman who would become Indra Devi was born in Russia in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown outside of India. By the time of her death, in 2002, it was being practiced everywhere, from Brooklyn to Berlin to Ulaanbaatar. In The Goddess Pose, New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg traces the life of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West—and in so doing paints a sweeping picture of the twentieth century. Michelle Goldberg will be in conversation with Ana Savoy of Jivamukti Yoga.

“In The Goddess Pose, Michelle Goldberg brings Indra Devi, a complicated and incredible woman, to life in Technicolor brilliance, as she bops, Zelig-like, through some of the most important events of last century—from the Russian Revolution to the rise of Nazism, to the JFK assassination. I’ll never think of yoga the same way again—and neither will you. Even if you’ve never uttered the word “˜namaste,’ you won’t be able to put this book down.” —Susannah Cahalan , New York Times best-selling author of Brain on Fire

Ticket includes an exhibition pre-tour at 6:15 PM.

Presented with NY Yoga + Life Magazine

About the Speaker

Michelle Goldberg is a journalist and the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, a New York Times best seller that was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. A senior contributing writer at The Nation, she has also written pieces for The New Yorker, the New York Times, Newsweek, The New Republic, Glamour, and many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children and her two-year-old son is a regular visitor to the Rubin’s Family Programs.

Ana Savoy was born in a small pueblo in Peru in 1976 to a loving family – three years later all immigrated to Lake Jackson, TX. Early on, Ana was inspired to become an actress/model and drove herself to Los Angeles. She took her first yoga class in Malibu at 21 years old. In 2002 at 25, Ana moved to New York where she started Jivamukti Yoga School. Studying yoga and working as a personal assistant to fashion moguls, business leaders and hoteliers gave her a real understanding that “˜conventional life’ was not going to help her understand who she really was. Coming to that enlightenment, it was time to shift her life. In 2003, Ana came into her most cherished roll, that of a mother to a beloved daughter. The question “Who am I” is a constant study. She continues to practice, grow and be a devoted mother, yoga teacher and yoga student.