Shanti danced since she could walk. This primal urge to move, fueled by the music, is part of her genetic composition. Since the age of six, when she was sat down at the piano, Shanti began to explore and love music more deeply. While still playing with her Barbies, she was turned on to her older brothers’ music collections – AC/DC, Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult, Elton John, and other kick ass, freaky rock rebels. When she finally started getting an allowance, the first thing she bought was “The Greatest Hits of 1976”, a K-Tel release she saw during a commercial break. It was the beginning of a long passion for collecting music that continues on in big form.
In 1985, she began her radio DJ career doing college radio in Portland, Oregon, carrying several shows at one time and covering styles from goth to punk to obscure psychedelic rock and indie. In 2000, after complaining for the last time that women were underrepresented in the DJ world, she got off her ass and bought her first DJ rig. She's been spinning consistently since then, incorporating her love of many different genres into her sets: house, breaks, progressive, krunk & funk’ed up beats, drum & bass and... whatever’s good.
Shanti is a resident of Triple Power, a San Francisco-based monthly that features the Bay Area & beyond’s best DJ talent spinning wicked vibes — and goes one step further – to create a space to feature the many visual, video, and performance artists that make the Bay Area the subculture source it is today.
She is also a contributing DJ and member of the nonprofit spiritual dance-based collective, the Rhythm Society, a tribe made up of culture visionaries, artists, musicians, and DJs.
Shanti has played for such events and communities as the Love Parade, the Gay Pride Parade, Opel Productions, Vibrant, Sweet!, Chakra #8, Vision, Space Cowboys, and the Blyss Abyss and Conexus Cathedral camps at Burning Man. She’s been fortunate to share the bill with such international talent as The Scumfrog, DJ Icey, Hybrid, Lee Coombs, Bassbin Twins, D:Fuse, Richard Humpty Vision, Mark Grant, Lorin Bassnectar, and Sandra Collins.
With more energy to spare, Shanti has created several large art installations in Black Rock City including the Blyss Abyss Giant Pink Lotus, Camp Conexus, and the Conexus Cathedral, a neogothic, modern reimagining of classic architecture and spiritual inspiration and one of the largest installations on the playa in 2006.
She's also been featured in two seminal works about the global dance and art subculture, the movie on the Burning Man movement, "Beyond Black Rock" and the book, "Trance Formation: The Spriritual and Religious Dimensions of Global Rave Culture" by Robyn Sylvan.
In her free time, Shanti designs club clothing and accessories as part of Needle and Egg Designs and does stuff like travel, sleep, laundry, and gardening.