Red Rocks Hosts Immersive Pagan Ritual of Nordic Folk With Heilung

What Christopher Juul sees from the stage each night is much more, and bigger, than a sold-out audience full of fervent fans.

“What we like to imagine is the forest of people in front of the stage can become a forest in the real world,” says the Heilung member.

The experimental Nordic folk outfit is conscious of the environmental impact its “rituals” and touring have, so there is always an “aftermath” effort to counterbalance that, Juul explains.

“For every person who buys a ticket, we donate to plant trees,” he adds. “For us, it’s a full circle doing these kinds of things. The gig has not ended when we leave the stage. There’s an aftermath that’s important to take care of.”

For Heilung's current U.S. tour, Juul and vocalists Kai Uwe Faust and Maria Franz partnered with eco organization Savage Lands, which focuses on reforestation and protecting land in areas threatened by development, such as Costa Rica’s rainforests.

“The Costa Rican rainforest is the fastest-declining on the planet because there are so many rich people buying lands and throwing the forests away,” Franz says. “Savage Lands realized it’s fairly easy to buy land and therefore protect it from being demolished.”

Part of the partnership is spreading awareness and further education on the situation in that country, including initiatives to save the native howler monkey population that’s being displaced.

Heilung has a soft spot for the primate. “We’ve always had a special relationship with the howler monkey, especially Chris,” shares Franz, who is Juul’s longtime partner.

“Yeah, I sound like one,” he quips.

“You sound exactly like one,” she responds. “We’re very inspired by that animal.”

Besides nature, the trio draws from a deep well of ancestral history dating back to the Bronze and Iron ages in northern Europe when creating their own pagan performances.
The pre-Christian rituals, as they’re referred to, start with the burning of ceremonial incense, a cleansing that concerns “inviting in the good spirits and asking the bad ones to step aside, creating a safe space,” Franz explains.

What follows is a concert unlike any other, filled with music that may otherwise be forever unknown to modern mankind, played with period-correct instruments made of animal bones and skins, and paired with Tibetan and Mongolian throat-singing vocals. Heilung has a way of bringing primitive beats and rhythms to life in such a sublime way, it becomes a spiritual experience.

Given the nature of the act, Red Rocks is a perfect place for the ritual Heilung will conduct on Tuesday, April 23. Eivør is also on the bill.

Heilung, which is German for "healing," has visited the sacred concert venue before, in 2021, and later released a full video of the show. It was also the first public performance of the current Heilung ritual, according to Juul, so he’s looking forward to bringing it back to its birthplace alongside a new album, Drif (2022).

“The place is just absolutely filled with energy,” he says. “It’s going to be a full-circle moment for us in many ways, because we started the performance and ritual we have now with that show.”

“I feel now that we’re coming with something that’s on our backbones,” Franz adds. “We’re breathing the ritual we’re coming with now.”

There are truly no “spectators and performers,” she continues, as fans are considered equal “participants” in the meditative practice.

As Franz sees it, the show is always a “journey through all human emotions, from fear to love to anger to hate and rage and taking the audience through this turbulent journey and bringing them into a trance-like state where we’re going to pound with beats for twelve minutes straight.”

“It definitely puts people in a special state of mind,” she adds. “We aim to alter your state of mind at certain points during the performance. The goal is that you leave the concert feeling in a better place than you were when you came.”

And maybe feeling a little inspired about your relationship with the world around you and how you can make a difference within it. It all adds up, Franz says.

“The ocean is made up of drops," she continues, "so basically if everyone thinks, ‘I’m a drop, I’m a drop,’ we’re all turning into an ocean in the end."

Juul agrees and has a message for all the returning participants. “To them, I just want to say, ‘Welcome home,’” he says, adding that it doesn’t matter if it’s your first or hundredth time seeing Heilung: Everyone is embraced.  

Franz dovetails off that sentiment: “On that note, remember that we all are brothers. That is the core message and also speaks to that whole idea that we are all connected."

“If you go far enough back in time, you will find so many similarities no matter where you are in the world,” she concludes. “There’s just something inside of us. It doesn’t matter where or when or what kind of religion or skin color, there’s just something that unites us. It’s this primal feeling that, as a spectator, you will experience at a Heilung ritual.”

Heilung, 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 West Alameda Parkway, Morrison. Tickets are $53.