A decade ago, Jessica Murphy, a native Atlantan, was practicing yoga all over town but couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. In those days, the few yoga studios that existed in Atlanta felt wide apart and disconnected to her. There was no “community.” The experience felt somewhat isolating, and she grew determined to create something authentic to bring Atlanta yoga practitioners together in a meaningful way.

“Jessica just saw a great need for the yoga studios and yoga students who were fairly spread out at the time to be able to come together,” says Catherine Koonce, who stepped in as director of operations in 2023, when Murphy wanted to start a family and felt it was time to delegate—after 10 years of managing almost everything herself—some of the managerial tasks to someone she could trust.

“I was getting exposed to so many new teachers,” Murphy said in an earlier interview, “and I was having such a great experience, it seemed to me that everyone should have the chance to try out all the great teachers in Atlanta.” Her commitment was to create something that was approachable, authentic, inclusive and supportive to nurture a sense of community and connection among anyone interested in yoga.

And Dirty South Yoga Fest—a weekend festival designed to do just that—was born. Historically a two-day event, now three days, the event features more than 100 Georgia-based yoga instructors and a panoply of vendors, food trucks, wellness brands, spa treatments, energy work and more for people to experience. This year, the festival will once again be held at the Loudermilk Center in Atlanta on August 23 through 25.

Participants can immerse themselves in a rich array of experiences—from gentle and restorative yoga classes to challenging and “sweaty” ones—and choose among an expansive set of unique offerings, including Sonic Yoga, Inversions, Your Inner Compass, Moving with Grief, Afro Fusion Flow Yoga, Radical Rest Kundalini and Southern Hip Hop Strength.

Stretching with Growth

With the fest’s history of selling out and drawing new attendees, the 2024 event is expected to be extra special. In 2023, its first year back after taking a three-year break due to the pandemic, 85 percent of ticket holders were new to the festival, and organizers are expecting upward of 1,200 attendees at the 2024 festival, up from around 1,000 in 2023.

Attendees are coming from farther away, too. While people have typically hailed from Atlanta and cities all around the South, last year the yoga festival witnessed more people arriving from cities as far away as New York City, Miami, Los Angeles and other Western states to experience connection and explore several of the many flavors of yoga.

More teachers from outside of the Atlanta area are joining in the fun, too. As COVID shut down a lot of studios for a couple years, Murphy and Koonce noticed that several teachers and studios from around the state were still innovating and growing in spite of it. Many of them provided “really incredible offerings,” says Koonce. Several of them have now been included in the Dirty South Yoga Fest schedule.

In fact, teacher interest in Dirty South has stretched even beyond Georgia’s borders, as organizers have been receiving a record number of teacher applications from out-of-state applicants. Since it began, the festival has only engaged teachers from Georgia since it wanted to support the local scene first and foremost. But that limitation might soon be lifted. “In 2025, when we start our second decade of the festival, we will be looking to expand [teacher hometowns] to a few additional states,” says Koonce.

The festival’s messaging about community may also be feeding its growth. “It’s not just for the yoga teacher. It’s not just for the studio owners,” says LeNaya Crawford, E-RYT 500, co-founder and co-CEO of Seviin Yoga in Kirkland Commons. “It’s for the people that are in the community and wanting a tangible way to sample and access the different ways in which yoga is taught and experienced in Atlanta.”

Pushing Beyond Boundaries

The yoga festival is also enjoying its second year partnering with lululemon to produce the event. Koonce finds the global apparel company to be both inspiring and inclusive. “To be able to add a really loving, perfect partnership with lululemon has meant the world to us,” she says. “lululemon itself has built a fantastic wellness community and a feeling that any type of wellness is for everybody.” Over the last year, the company has helped the festival grow and reach a wider audience.

Pushing back on the tendency for Americans to harbor a limited—even stereotypical—idea of what yoga is and who it’s for, diversity is a key ingredient to the festival’s mission. “The most important piece is diversity. No one looks the same. No one practices the same. Everyone is coming from different backgrounds. We’re all coming together for the sole purpose of celebrating the ability to move and breathe in this life,” says Crawford. “It’s been really nice to see all the ways in which people have expanded their ideas of what it means to be in a yoga community.”

“Yoga is for every body,” says Koonce, who has been involved with event production for 15 years. “We really want to honor all types of yogis—people who are new, people who have been yogis for years, people who left and came back.”

Embracing Self-Care

As the culture is embracing and adopting more self-care practices these days, yoga studios are responding. “People are applying this idea of true self-care—not just about what’s outside your

body but also what you’re putting into it,” says Koonce. There’s more attention to functional wellness, nervous system regulation, and trauma-informed yoga practices in Atlanta studios, for example.

This more holistic perspective and attention to inner wellness has even inspired Murphy and Koonce to begin to roll out new branding for the company. The red, black and white logo of the past nine years has expressed the raw and self-expressive energy that was an important part of its identity. But organizers feel it’s time for a change and are introducing a new, more calming brand look this year, featuring purples, blues and peach colors to reflect a softer and more self-aware energy. The new identity already has some presence on the company website.

Community First

“One of the things that makes the festival special is that, from the beginning, it wasn’t about who could be the best teacher or do the backbend or do the cool thing. It was always about how do we come together as a community and showcase our diversity in wellness and in yoga,” says Crawford. The Dirty South Yoga Fest has helped open countless minds about what yoga is, and it has helped foster connection and community so that no one has to feel alone in their yoga journey. Plus, it makes it all that much more fun. ❧

Tickets for the Dirty South Yoga Fest are on sale online from $35 for the Friday night kickoff party to $289 for the Friday night event and full access to activities for all three days. The event takes place August 22 through 25 at the Loudermilk Center, 40 Courtland St. NE, in Atlanta.

Disclosure: Natural Awakenings has been a media sponsor for the last several festivals.