Ecstatic dance

Ecstatically dancing maenad. Detail from a Paestan red-figure skyphos, c. 330-320 BC

Ecstatic dance is a style of free form dance in which the music is the teacher. In this form of dance, there is no structure or steps to follow or any particular way to dance.[1]

Ecstatic dancing is a collective practice which has been cultivated throughout human history.

Ancient

The writer and musician Karen Berggren relates ecstatic dance to the ancient practice of shamanism, which has for millennia made use of drumming, rhythm, and ecstatic dance to effect spiritual healing.[2]

The classicist Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi notes that maenads, intoxicated female worshippers of the Greek god Dionysus, "erupted in ecstatic revelations and frenzied dancing".[3]

Modern

There are many different formats of Ecstatic Dance that have developed today.

By 2018, the Ecstatic Dance Community Foundation was able to list over 80 places which offered "organized, spontaneous dance practices – as oxymoronic as that might sound".[4]

Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms

The dancer and musician Gabrielle Roth brought the term "Ecstatic Dance" back into current usage in the 1970s with her dance format called 5Rhythms; this consists of five sections, each with a different rhythm, together constituting a "Wave". The five rhythms (in order) are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.[5]

This was followed by her 1989 book Maps to Ecstasy.[5] In 2004, Roth produced an audiobook called Ecstatic Dance; it included three dance workouts ("Waves") to her "five universal rhythms".[6]

Body Choir

Some of the first Ecstatic Dances were in Austin, Texas known as:"Body Choir" which was a non-for-profit organization developed in 1990s by Carola Marashi and friends. Max Fathom was a dancer who attended Austin's "Body Choir" and took its concept to Hawaii in the early 2000s. He became a volunteer at Kalani Honua, in Puna on the Big Island of Hawaii. He formed an Ecstatic Dance at Kalani that was a Community hosted event until 2009. Originally, his dance was spelled Ex-Static Dance and eventually was known by either spelling as the same event. Around the same time Ecstatic Dance Seattle also arose on the west coast.

Another dancer who was inspired by "Body Choir", Sydney 'Samadhi' Strahan, founded Ecstatic Dance Evolution in Houston, Texas in 2003. Strahan's format focuses on community unity, personal, and group transformation. It adheres to the musical structures of the Wave, 9 Vedic chakras, and the 8 Vedic Rasa (aesthetics) in every dance. Strahan has been training facilitators and ecstatic music curators since 2005. Since 2014 she has been offering training sessions to open other locations around the globe. Her training includes: one-on-one sessions and groups for facilitation, business, and Samadhi's style of music curation.

Julia Ray's Tribal Dance Community

In 2006, Julia Ray started Tribal Dance Community[7] (an Ecstatic Dance event in Toronto, Canada which emerged from years of teaching yoga and the desire to access our human potential in a more expanded way. For 5 years free-form movement, sounding, theatre, art installations and live and recorded music were all ways of exploring what is alive and wanting to be expressed organically. This format was simplified with the intention of creating a space that is more accessible with free-form movement and recorded and live music as central elements and with that Ecstatic Dance Toronto was born in 2012.

Tyler Blank and Donna Carroll's Ecstatic Dance

In 2008, Tyler Blank and Donna Carroll co-founded an Ecstatic Dance event at Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland, California.[8] The format has spread around the world. Blank founded an Ecstatic Dance non-for-profit organization with the mission of connecting communities and teaching how to start Ecstatic Dance events around the world, free of charge. Carroll started an Ecstatic Dance for-profit business and branding for Ecstatic Dance, focused on gaining income from training sessions, workshops, and merchandise. In 2012, Blank and Craig Kohland aka Sahuna of Shaman's Dream Music and Liquid Bloom held the 1st Annual Ecstatic Dance Retreat, at Kalani. The event has continued to be held every year since 2012.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rooke, Jacques. "The Restorative Effects of Ecstatic Dance: A Qualitative Study" (PDF). Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  2. ↑ Berggren, Karen (1998). Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. ISBN 978-0-89281-622-4.
  3. ↑ Dickason, Kathryn. "Stanford scholar studies ancient Greek dance performances from the viewers' perspective". Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  4. ↑ Miller, Anna Medaris (24 May 2018). "What Is Ecstatic Dance – and Can It Improve Your Health?". US News.
  5. 1 2 Roth, Gabrielle; Loudon, John (1989). Maps to Ecstasy: Teachings of an Urban Shaman. New World Library. ISBN 978-0-931432-52-1.
  6. ↑ Roth, Gabrielle (2004). Ecstatic Dance (DVD-ROM ed.). Sounds True. ISBN 978-1591791768.
  7. ↑ "Ecstatic Dance Toronto". Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  8. ↑ "Ecstatic Dance Community". Ecstatic Dance Community. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
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