Om On The Road

How A Viola Player For Adele, Panic! At The Disco, And Ariana Grande Brings Yoga On Tour To Avoid Injury And Stay Rooted, Balanced, And Calm.

- Michelle Konstantinovsky

Late last July, a small group of yoga practitioners roamed the bustling hallways of Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center looking for a vacant room adequate for a quick asana practice. It was Friday after lunch, and the indoor arena was swarming with crew members feverishly unpacking, assembling, and rigging lighting and sound equipment for the night’s show. In a few hours, nearly 20,000 more people would flood the venue. But for the moment, these musicians just needed to find some peace and quiet.

By 8 p.m., this group of women—Kiara Ana Perico, Desiree Hazley, and Leah Metzler, also known to fans as the Wicked Strings—would swap their mats for musical instruments and take the stage as accompaniment for rock band Panic! at the Disco. For the seven months prior to this, the three classically trained musicians have been accompanying Panic!, led by frontman Brendon Urie, across the country (58 cities with a quick midway stint in the U.K. and Australia) on the Pray For The Wicked tour. But between all-night bus rides, triple-stacked bunk beds, constant time-zone shifts, endless soundchecks, and behind-the-scenes races to hit their stage marks, Perico, the group’s cofounder and resident violist, has taken it upon herself to guide her tour mates in mindful movement— even when that means taking up residence for an hour in the box of an empty 16-wheeler.