Why (Ecstatic) Dance Can Be More Effective than Therapy
And why you should definitely check it out, even if you are not a dancer
Recently two of my clients, finally, after proposing it to them for over a year, went to their first ecstatic dance. They both absolutely loved it.
One of them even said it was the most amazing experience ever, better than his Ayahuasca journey!
I find comparisons quite stupid because no 'one' thing ever stands alone, outside of context. However, in light of the confirmation from my clients, I do think it's time to write about the power of ecstatic dance and how it totally changed my life and can help you do the same.
What is Ecstatic Dance?
"When there is dancing and no dancer, it is the ultimate of meditation. Ecstasy. Freedom. Freedom from the Ego. Freedom from the Doer." Osho
'Ecstatic dance' has been known since Ancient times as a spiritual practice to enter trance states, ecstasy, and communion with the divine. However, it had its resurrection in the West since the 2000’s. Gabrielle Roth, the mother of 5Rhythms, revived the dance scene as a (therapeutic) movement practice in the 70’s and that gave rise to all sorts of off-shoots, ecstatic dance being one of them. It has been sprouting like a mycelium network all around the world since then and you will probably be able to find places to dance in most major cities. If not, you can be the one to start one :).
Ecstatic Dance is very simple. There are only a handful of rules on the dance floor:
1) no drugs or alcohol
2) no shoes and
3)no talking on the dance floor.
The rest is very general practice everywhere or at least should be: respect the other dancers, which includes a) no touch (or dancing together) without consent, which can be communicated with simple hand gestures and eye contact. And b) do not judge, self or others.
Within these rules, everything is welcome in Ecstatic Dance. This is a free room for self-expression and exploration. If you feel like jumping up and down like a monkey, you can. If you want to crawl like a lizard on the floor, you can. If you want to just sit in meditation and stillness, you can. If you want to connect with another and they are open to it, you can.
The floor is your limit. :)
So what happens to you on the dance floor and why is it possibly more effective than therapy?
To me ecstatic dance is a highly advanced psycho-spiritual-social technology. And I am not exaggerating either. It goes way beyond exercise and even beyond just the simple pleasure of dancing as we know it from clubs and parties.
Most of the ecstatic dance music has no lyrics or very little. That's because the dance journey is designed to take you on a journey: from the slow and unwinding to the high of ecstasy through the depths of your shadows and up into peace and serenity again.
With the music a good DJ who is in tune with his audience has the capacity to take you into trance and help you dissolve yourself into an experience of oneness with everyone else.
Through the journey you get to connect with parts of yourself that lie dormant or you don't have access to on a daily basis.
You get to shake off energy that is not yours.
You get to shout, grunt and express your wild animal, feel all the build up frustration and anger that happens in life and give it room to move through you.
You get to dance your pain and alchemise it into the pleasure of movement and being alive.
You get to feel yourself in connection with the other, to explore your boundaries, your yes's and your no's. To play with the fluid movement from connection back to your centre and out again.
You get to explore your sensual, poetic self, …the one that is in love with the present moment.
You get to feel yourself as part of the whole, reignite that sense of belonging that is so often lost to us in the modern world.
You get to feel the embodiment of your spirit, the unlimited version of yourself and feel her/his wisdom and guidance throbbing through your veins.
You get to experiment with new movements, dimensions (horizontal, vertical e.g.) and in that way allow your mind to breakthrough your self-imposed rigid structures that we often find ourselves in.
And all of that while stretching and lubricating your fascia, your joints, moving your muscles and sweating out accumulated toxins. (Yes, dance can be a great purifier. I even remember moments I almost puked on the dance floor…in a really good way. Just getting rid of shit.)
After an (good) ecstatic dance I feel like I have had the best night of love making, a medicinal journey, or a profound mystical experience. I feel renewed, replenished and reborn. Utterly 'wasted' too. In the best meaning of that word: totally empty. No more mind. Just present to what is. It's in that void that I get to access the wisdom of my being.
Of course Ecstatic Dance is not 'better' than therapy, as in: we should just do that and not the other. But I find that for those of us who are committed to our growth, healing and embodiment…'therapy' (or coaching) alone won't be enough. We need practice. Whatever tools that we learn and insights we have, unless we take it into life, it won't matter much.
Ecstatic dance is like a (safe) laboratory in which we get to experiment with what it means to be ourselves.
We get to learn about how energy moves through us, how it stays stuck, how it releases and how we are in the driver's seat of letting it happen. It's so empowering precisely because it takes us out of our mind into the tangible felt sense of feeling it, breathing it, moving it, sweating it, touching it…and by doing so makes it more real, more concrete, more alive and more intimate.
A Note For the (Self-Conscious) "Newbies"
When I discovered dancing in this way, I liked it but it also was overwhelming to me, which is to say, I didn't know back then how to regulate my Nervous System yet. During the first dances I was so busy with what everyone was doing (is this really all welcome?) and how everyone was perceiving me…I felt so self-conscious and so naked in that, that sometimes it was really really hard to enjoy the dance.
In short I was still stuck a lot in my head because it felt unsafe to be in my body.
I remember all the different voices in my head trying to get attention, fluctuating from:
oh this movement feels so awkward, everyone is probably laughing at me,
to
Look at me, I'm so special and the best dancer on the dance floor.
Only to then feel utterly ashamed that I would be so self-conscious/arrogant. I would be trying hard to get rid of those voices, pretend they are not there, so scared that everyone could read everything written clearly on my face.
The truth is that coming face to face with these parts of the self (the I'm not good enough and I'm better than you) is precisely the medicine that this practice offers.
We are never as vulnerable as when we surrender ourselves to the pleasure of our bodies.
It's this vulnerability that helps us to reveal who we truly are and everything that is in the way of coming into union with that: all your shame, pain and fear.
Eventually I learned to embrace these parts of me. Sometimes I feel little, sometimes I feel big. Sometimes I'm a victim and sometimes I can be arrogant. These are all parts of me and they are welcome.
When I stopped fighting the voices in my head, I found my freedom. And with that freedom I found my inner safety.
Through feeling safe, I feel powerful. Empowered, embodied. Connected. Empathic. Able to feel where others are at and sometimes even able to make them feel safe by just letting them sense that all of it is welcome in them, too.
That's another beautiful part of ecstatic dance. We are in it together. We co-create the vibe, we get to help each other along by working on feeling safe within ourselves (first).
So if you are new to the practice, go and explore. Find your edge. I can't promise you that the music will always be the best and that the people will always be the most open and connected, but I can promise you that it's all part of the journey called Life and that if you say YES to it, you will be rewarded.
Ecstatic Dance works on all the levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. The best thing about it is that you get to choose how far and deep you want to go, you get to find your own medicine within.
So go out and be brave, even if you think you are not a dancer, likelihood is that that's your trauma/conditioning speaking. You cannot know unless you have tried the medicine there is for you in movement. If you are serious about being in your body, this is a wonderful practice.
And we all need practice above, or at least next to, therapy.
If you like what you read, you can buy me a coffee! Thank you!
Kasia Patzelt is an Artist, Laughter Yogi, Embodiment and Integration Coach. She helps people to release trauma and learn the art of self-compassion through embodiment practices and creativity.
I love it and can so relate to this artikel