sound reverence • giving trends • travel new england conscious winter 2011 issue #17 movement for a better worldDANCER

time to embody occupy the movement with love

Roots of Contact Improvisation Evolution Being Danced Lead with the Body

Nothing is more important than feeling good: Onesie Harmony.

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2 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 3 Photo: courtesy of www.journeydance.com

4 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Quixotic Fusion exemplifies aerial dance.

22 FEATURES 18 Being Danced Philip Shepherd has lived a many-faceted life leading up to his current incarnation as visionary author. His recent book New Self, New World 18 tackles the question of what it means to be embodied in today’s world, 9 Inspiration: TransDanced and why bodily wisdom is an essential partner to rational thought. TransDance founder Heather Munro Pierce holds space in the High Sierra. 11 CURRENT: Occupy Movement 22 As Above, So Below Dancing flash mobs occupy love in support of Performers are no longer bound by gravity in today’s cutting-edge the movement. world of aerial and underwater dances. We take a visual tour of these 13 spotlight: The Rosen Method new dimensions of movement. Odile Atthalin shares her experience with the elder-friendly form of Rosen Movement. Departments

ikaela – M 14 destination: New England 26 Making Contact DJ Root of Journeydance fame gives a tour of As culture was evolving through the 20th century, a sea change took hotspots for dancers. place in the world of movement. Contributing Editor Elana 16 WARMUPS • Bodhitrix: The Players Deck Silverman scans dance innovations before the ’60s, and Contact • Debbie Rosas: The Body’s Business Quarterly Editor Nancy Stark Smith reveals the people and process • Seven Surefire Class Fillers that led to the appearance of Contact Improvisation. 30 VITALITY: Tasteful Giving Our readers dish up sweet ideas for sharing and caring. 32 SOUNDS: Reverence and Resonance Lloyd Barde explores the power of music for con- nection and healing. 30 35 MOVEMENT MENU • Winter Highlights • Book Reviews: Sleight, Uncertainty, Spark • DVD: Vine of the Soul • MixMaster: Alia Rhythms 46 RESULTS: InterPlay Enlivens Learn to follow the wisdom of your

: courtesy of www.quixoticfusion.com / Photo middle: igor zenin bottom: flickr Photo T o p : courtesy of www.quixoticfusion.com own intuition.

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 5 Readers Share

Moving in a Blur assumption — usually correct — that nobody My glasses remain in place as I surrender to is watching or judging me. Instead, I can inter- the floor. In a 20/20 world, I stretch and roll, act with bodies as wholes, moving into and waking up every muscle and joint, stimulat- out of shared dances, protecting myself and ing my organs, and helping my mind relax looking out for those near me in a general way. its captainship. I get vertical as the music Just to sense the bodies around me and to transitions from tempo-free soundscapes to feel my own extremities without needing to something with a beat. Soon I am moving to examine them is a miracle of sorts. It feels the rhythms, my revitalized self easing into like swimming, like surrender. In the uncer- the holy exercise. tain world of 20/300 vision, forms are only Now I start to perspire (I’m quite good as defined as they need to be, and it is truly at this), so I find my way back to where I’ve impossible to sweat the details. I can get lost left my shoes and water bottle. Before my in motion without being tripped up by uncer- glasses get the chance to fly off my sweat-slick tainty, awkwardness, titillation, or anybody face, I store them in my shoe. The dance floor else’s mental dance. instantly becomes a moving Monet: fuzzy This is what I imagine it would be like to swatches of color and momentum without dance inside an Impressionist painting. The specific features or points. In a way, this is world around is vibrant but soft. We are all how I know that I’m no longer warming up just brush strokes, motions who only mean but dancing. themselves. The only drawback I can think In this field of kinetic impressionism, the of is that I might not recognize you if I see last fleck of logical governance is free to leave you there. Don’t think I’m being unfriendly— my movement. For me, this is an unmitigated I just can’t see that it’s you. If you remember positive. I feel safe where I dance, so not this when you see me dancing with my glasses seeing sharply doesn’t worry me. Moreover, off, please come dance with me to say hello. as someone prone to self-consciousness, the Perspective by Daniel Ari inability to read faces lets me maintain the Berkeley, CA

Our Apologies!

In the last issue (#17), we inadvertently movement modalities including Movement omitted some important information about Montage created and led by Liz Tucker every our friends in Dallas in the Destination: T is Tuesday evening. And, Mati Vargas-Gibson for Texas spread. To start, our writer Monica offers 5Rhythms classes weekly at the Sam- Blossom hosts a monthly outdoor Ecstatic mons Center for the Arts. Hats off to the Community Moondance at White Rock vibrant Texas dance community; we thank Lake. Our friends at Move Studios in Dallas you for all you do! Please write to us at offer Nia classes every day along with other [email protected].

6 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 ConsciousDancer.com ou probably have some experience transition point in our evolution and are in your life where you find yourself parting ways at the helm of Conscious ydeep in appreciation. For me it Dancer. I’m eternally grateful for her could be while I’m dancing or playing dedication and spirit and will always records, or doing a jigsaw puzzle with value her tremendous contribution to the my four-year-old. These moments are community. I feel fortunate and blessed like gratitude anchors that pull me out by the chance to lead Conscious Dancer of the troubles of the world and remind into the future. me of that old book by Voltaire when the We bring the passion of Occupy into character Candide says, “Everything is these pages, highlighting the natural and exactly as it should be, in this most perfect human element of the movement. We also of all possible worlds.” Indeed, while that bring you author Philip Shepherd’s wisdom may seem trite, it is Candide’s unflagging on embodiment, improvisation pioneer positive attitude that leads him through Checking In Nancy Stark Smith’s look at the history of extraordinary travails to peace and safety. Contact Improvisation, and a spine-tingling Like Candide, I try to remember that when change for 100% of us. My hope is that photo essay on aerial and underwater things get tough, it’s possibly just the trial I dancers can help to infuse a serious dance. Plus a tip of the hat to three favorite need—and I strive to replace fear with love situation with some levity, and help modalities, TransDance, InterPlay, and the wherever I can. connect the global community with Rosen Method. Enjoy our winter serving! For society on the whole a moment “movement for a better world.” With warm wishes and gratitude, of serious upheaval and adjustment has Another moment has arrived here at arrived. Large numbers of people are the heart of this magazine. After 17 issues willing to brave serious discomfort and of collaboration, my co-founder Aspen grave danger to bring about positive Madrone and I have come to a healthy mark metz, Editor - in - Chief

STAFF CONTRIBUTORS Philip Shepherd is the author of New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in founded in 2007 by Mark Metz & Aspen Madrone the Twenty-first Century. He is also a workshop leader, lecturer, private coach and published by Moving Arts International actor. As a teen he cycled alone through Europe, the Middle East, Iran, India, and Editor-in-Chief Mark Metz finally Japan, where he studied classical Noh theatre. That trip deeply informed his Creative Direction Aspen Madrone ability to critique Western culture and the assumptions that shape it. His feature Design and production Isabelle Metz & Brian Yee story discusses an aspect of Noh theatre and its relevance to embodied move- managing Editor Rachel Trachten ment, with excerpts from his book. www.philipshepherd.com office manager Karina Louise contributing editors Liz Mac, Jetta Martin, Elana Silverman, Mariana Rose Thorn Elana Silverman is a Bay Area writer, educator, dancer, and regular contributor to Conscious Dancer magazine. In this issue, she covers the development of dance in Staff writers Rachel Trachten, Elana Silverman the 20th century and New England’s hot spots for movement and dining. She also Sales and community Aspen Madrone & Liz Mac performs with Deep Root Dance Collective and works at a local high school. Every Webmaster Steve Shaw summer, Elana skips town to live in a tent and lead whitewater rafting trips for the I.T. angel Luis Echeverria American River Touring Association. She holds a BA in dance from Smith College. Licensing Efrain Correal [email protected]

special thanks to Laura Cirolia, Deborah Meyer, Casie Casados, Emily Anderson, and Veronica Lloyd Barde is music editor of Common Ground magazine and a frequent con- Ramirez. tributor to various publications. His story “The Cure is Curiosity” appears in the book Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Lives: Defining Moments. As DJ Heartbeat, his Editorial [email protected] musical mixes are mesmerizing and all-inclusive. Lloyd produces two concert series Ad Sales [email protected] in the Bay Area, and continues to sell CDs, having founded Backroads Music 30 Subscribe www.consciousdancer.com years ago. His Sounds article explores the musical and psychological powers of other Inquiries & submissions reverence and resonance. [email protected] [email protected] PO Box 2330, Berkeley, CA 94702 (510) 778-9131 Odile Atthalin, MA Psychology, has been a Rosen Method Movement teacher Conscious Dancer is a quarterly active lifestyle magazine since 1995 and leads weekly RosenDance classes in Berkeley, California. In our that celebrates transformative dance, mind-body fitness, and energy movement arts. Conscious Dancer does not endorse Spotlight story, she writes about her RosenDance movement class, based on the any specific modality, practitioner, or product. Please consult work of renowned physical therapist Marion Rosen. Odile is also a Rosen Method a health professional before attempting any new movement Bodywork practitioner in private practice and director/senior training teacher of activities or health regimens. Conscious Dancer disclaims any liability for loss or injury in connection with activities the Rosen Method Open Center, offering bodywork and movement workshops in portrayed or advice given herein. Please send all editorial mail, the US and Europe. www.rosenmethodopencenter.com/movement or manuscripts, letters to the editor, and address changes via [email protected] email or to our Conscious Dancer address listed above. © 2011 Moving Arts International. Printed in the USA with post consumer-waste content using soy-based inks. Please reuse COVER > Dancers in San Francisco, California, lend steps and spirit to the Occupy Movement. and recycle. All rights reserved. PHOTO > Taken by Kai Moore. www.peanutjellysandwich.com

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 7 transformation community leadership

The Path of Embodied Awakening facilitator training reach your full potential teach movement medicine

with samantha sweetwater, christopher campbell & guest dj’s upcoming EMBODIMENT: march 2 – 11, 2012 VISION: april 28 – may 5, 2012 MASTERY: july 13 – 22, 2012 VISION: july 30 – august 6, 2012

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8 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 inspiration

TransDanced Elements are one of the keys to transformation in the ecstatic rituals of Heather Munro Pierce.

Modern-day temple dancer Heather Munro Pierce is the creator of a form of

i tphotograph e r. c o m .th e portra movement meditation/ecstatic dance called TransDance®. Seen here on the shore of Lake Tahoe during a spring retreat, Pierce offers a style of facilitation that honors the mysteries of life and the unfolding of the soul. www.transdance.com P hoto: L or i A . Ch eu ng www ™ JourneY Dance Fall in Love with Yourself! January 18 - 23, 2012 JourneyDance™: Teacher Training Module 1 San Antonio, TX www.thesynergystudio.com February 2 - 5, 2012 Carribean Yoga Conference Montego Bay, Jamaica www.caribbeanyogaconference.com

March 16 - 18, 2012 Journey Dance™: You Are the Prayer Toni Bergins and Adam Sutton Kripalu Center www.kripalu.org

Toni Bergins, Creator & Director of JourneyDance, inspires self-esteem, inner wisdom, emotional health, spiritual practice and total well-being, leading JourneyDance retreats internationally. Full schedule, events & store: www.journeydance.com

10 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 OCCUPY One Tribe Flash Mob dances the pain of separation, then invokes a message of unity, creating MOVEMENT a bridge of reconciliation by maureen freehill at Occupy San Francisco and Oakland on November 19. “You can’t evict an idea As conscious dancers, we are activated by direct experiences that has been embodied,” says co-choreographer of dancing the world awake. Dancers have always been Samantha Sweetwater. activists, keeping our bodies in action. Being free to

. n e t creatively express our innermost passions and insights also inspires others to express their own truths. A profound shift

tom lev y , www. of radical inclusion is shown in the consensus process of Occupiers worldwide. Affirming that every being matters is a powerful step for humanity. Sustainable balanced systems OCCUPY DANCE Making connections by fully engaging our bodies are essential; our bodies teach that we do not need to be with play and fun in events like surprise Flash Mobs is a crucial part of regulated by something outside of ourselves. With somatic this WE-volution movement. Spontaneous group choreography and free- awareness we embody interconnectedness and stand for form dance are powerful forms of prayer that celebrate the sacredness non-violation. Knowing we make a difference, we trust our that unites us. The Occupy movement faces serious challenges, a wide diversity of perspectives, and risks from fear and violence. The power of hearts and bodies and support one another to be and move collective music and dance brings a vital levity to Occupy. Let’s make it in ways that most inspire us. We feel free to occupy our a love-olution, freeing our spirits so walls that separate us can melt and our bodies and dance the sovereignty of our truth. true power can rise. www.dancingwithoutborders.org n g. com / photo Bottom : T om L ev y to u chd rawi K off -C h a p i n , www.

OCCUPY NATURE The survival of less than one percent of beings on planet earth — we humans — is based on resources of our non-human relatives. Indigenous cultures have honored and danced this fact since time began, yet our conventional urban lifestyles often separate us from our wild nature and power. Through nature-based conscious dance practices we open our senses, imagination, and cellular memories of our ancestors. Our embodied arts practices can restore intimate connections and sustain balanced relationships with all beings. Go dance in a wild place, move with a plant or animal, or fully occupy a wild and Maureen Momo natural thing — yourself! www.butopia.org Freehill embodies the dance of the salmon at the November 17 Mass Day of Action. Occupiers doing HuManDalas in Oakland, California, embody the form of a five-pointed star to OCCUPY HARMONY For generations, martial artists and yogis connect the earth to the heavens. have placed our bodies in certain poses to activate higher states of consciousness; we are now doing this en masse without need for hierarchic leadership. Ancient symbols like the flower of life, the torus, star tetrahedron, and other powerful shapes activate oneness and connection within the group. We sense the unseen energetics of tth ia s geiger / photo Mi dd le: Deb o ra h ourselves and the environment and can transform it. Intentionally dancing a full spectrum of shapes and frequencies upshifts the whole to harmony. Activating in unity, we synchronize and attune our P hoto T op : m a individual and group body, mind, and spirit. www.humandalas.com

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 11 12 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 spotlight

Moving through Life RosenDance brings joyful movement with ease and grace.

by Odile Atthalin

arrive early and jog around the sunlit studio, enjoying the CD of James Galway, moving in different combinations and directions, Sacred Earth Drums by David and Steve Gordon. By 9 a.m. our focusing on balance and fun. I circle has formed, ten women and men ages 30 to 80, greeting one I model the moves and name each part of our bodies involved. My another for a morning of RosenDance. words are simple; my voice conveys ease and playfulness. These verbal Based on teachings developed by master physical therapist Marion cues keep us focused on what we sense and feel as we move. This is a Rosen in the 1960s, my class in Berkeley, California, offers safe, gentle work-in more than a work-out. As Marion Rosen says, “Timing that movement to music, progressing from small, simple moves to larger, allows you to be aware of the impact of movement on the inside is very more complex ones. Rosen, who is 97 and taught movement until she different from mindless performed movement.” Best known for her was in her 80s, called her method “physical therapy internationally renowned bodywork technique—the in reverse” because she created it in response “No worrying, no Rosen Method—Rosen also developed a movement to clients asking how they could avoid needing method with similar goals. As the bodyworker’s physical therapy. trying hard. We are touch facilitates opening and releasing through Class starts with Bob Marley’s reggae classic layers of chronic tension, so does the practice of “One Love,” to accompany moves that lubricate in the flow, and it’s moving consciously. Added benefits include increased our joints as we bend, swing, sway, rotate, jiggle, a wonderful feeling.” flexibility, range of motion, and physical and emotional and twist. We move our hips, feet, and leg muscles awareness. to the sensual tunes of South Pacific panpipes, exploring our range of To end class, we sit on the floor back to back with a partner, sensing motion. Switching to slow Leonard Cohen songs for deeper stretches, and flexing our backs; then we lie down, and as we listen to haunting we expand our chests and loosen our diaphragms, allowing more Buddhist chants, we roll and twist from side to side, enjoying our spine breath, enlivening the core of our bodies. For an element of surprise, in contact with the floor. We assimilate the experiences of the previous I vary the music and moves with every class. segments, relax deeply, and allow all parts of ourselves to come together We pause for breath and feelings between segments. Mindful in embodied self-awareness. repetitions create familiarity and ease. No worrying, no trying hard. RosenDance is an ideal movement practice for anyone who wants We are in the flow, and it’s a wonderful feeling. Moving in a circle, we to move consciously, well into their 80s. Medical research continues to partner with another and share the mood brought on by the music. show the benefits of moving to music: it builds new neural pathways, Community and camaraderie builds. For an introvert like me, it’s my makes us steadier on our feet, and protects us from falling. t e sy r os n m thod op c nt er weekly dose of gregariousness. “Every movement can be a dance,” says Rosen. “To use movement as Ready for larger movements, we try a grapevine sequence to upbeat a dance, to dance through life, that is really our goal.”

P hoto : co ur Motown rhythms. Then we dance across the floor to the lyrical flute www.RosenMethodOpenCenter.com

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 13 destination

Elements interact at the Waterfire festival in Rhode Island. New ENgland: Roots & Revivals by Root Cuthbertson

From the rocky North Atlantic coast to the Green Mountains, Lake Champlain to Narragansett Bay, New England is a patchwork of small farming hamlets, college towns, and bustling urban centers.

he barefoot freestyle dances that England, from Contact Improvisation Drum and dance events flourish as started in the 1960s and ‘70s are and Argentine tango to swing, salsa, well, embodying ancient and indigenous T relative newcomers to the New and ballroom. We’ve got rug-cutting folkways. Regular drum circles abound, England dance scene, whose heritage harks conventions, lindy hops, milongas, and with yearly gatherings like Rites of Spring back centuries. In more recent times, Dance jams. Our specialty is contra dance, a in Mt. Washington, Massachusetts, where Freedom, where dancers still congregate partnered “mixer” descending from dancers can connect with nature, fire, and weekly, began in Harvard Square in 1968. 17th-century English country dancing. community. A consortium of dances with similar success Contra has enjoyed widespread appeal Claiming roots in the Mediterranean and longevity, now united as Dance since the 1850s, with a resurgence after Goddess-worshipping cultures that New England, hosts an annual summer the New England Folk Festival began ushered in the agricultural revolution camp. These dances form the core of the in 1944. And Morris dance teams, with circa 10,000 BCE, sacred circle dancing current conscious dance revival, moving their origins in the traditional dances of may be the great-great-grandma of all from barefoot, substance-free beginnings 15th-century England, appear all over conscious dance forms. Weekly dances to embrace the notion that dance can be the region, clearly influencing political at the Neskaya Movement Arts Center both social and spiritual. mummers troupes like Vermont’s Bread & in Franconia, New Hampshire, are the The next generation of conscious Puppet Theater. modern incarnation of a dance that’s been dances have emerged from this notion In 1933, the seeds of the Jacob’s ongoing for thousands of years. too, bringing Nia, 5Rhythms, Soul Pillow Dance Festival were planted. New Englanders have no qualms about t er f ire. o rg Motion, YogaDance, Shake Your Soul, America’s longest running international mixing tradition and innovation, Pilgrim’s a

and JourneyDance to studios and retreat dance festival began with a performance pride and Yankee ingenuity. We’re proud t e sy W centers across the region. by Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers in the to be part of creating a dance culture that Partner dances also abound in New Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. honors both the roots and the revival! P hoto : C o ur

14 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 GREAT FLOORS warning: “Spirit Dance RI events may Sky Meadow Retreat, Stannard, VT Bread & Puppet, Glover, VT cause uncontrollable grooving, happi- A small family homestead on 120 Part puppet show, part circus, part Community Circle Dance, ness, and states of bliss!” acres of hilltop views in the Northeast social movement, the Bread & Puppet New Haven, CT www.spiritdanceri.org Kingdom. Sky Meadow’s renovated collective has been crafting delightfully Monthly dance at the Friends Meeting- post-and-beam barn is a haven for subversive performances and selling house, “moving in the footsteps of our Dance Tribe, Shelburne, VT retreats on conscious communication, homespun artwork since 1963. ancestors.” Weekly dances serving the greater insight meditation, and couples work. www.breadandpuppet.org www.nhcircledance.yolasite.com Burlington area based on 5Rhythms www.skymeadowretreat.com and Soul Motion. Dance Freedom, Cambridge, MA www.vermontdancetribe.org SAVE-THE-DATES The grandmother of all freestyle LEARN dances in North America, this weekly January barefoot boogie, held in a beautiful GOOD TASTE 5 College Dance Department: The Global Underscore, Earthdance, church in Harvard Square, has been Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mount Plainfield, MA In 1972 Nancy Stark Claire’s Corner Copia, New Haven, CT inspiring dancers since 1968. Holyoke Colleges and the University of Smith began her love affair with This organic, vegetarian, kosher res- www.dancefreedom.com Massachusetts at Amherst. Five distinc- Contact Improvisation. She continues taurant is all about community. Claire’s tive programs united into one large to explore many styles of post-modern Dance Friday, Brookline, MA displays local artists’ work, donates to department offering BA, BFA, and MFA dance, attracting a global following for The other oldest Barefoot Boogie on Connecticut charities, and oh yeah, degrees in dance. her annual three-week dance training. the continent welcomes children and serves up ooh-ey, gooey, obsession- www.fivecolleges.edu/sites/dance www.nancystarksmith.com chatting at its laid-back weekly jam. worthy food. www.dancefriday.org www.clairescornercopia.com Dance Spirit, Northampton, MA Cafe Evolution, Vegan Cafe and Per- In this conversation-free space, formance Space, Florence, MA participants of all faiths are invited to Live music, comfy couches, hearty dance their prayers, acknowledging Sunday brunch, and unbelievably deli- many forms of deity and spirituality cious vegan pastries. at bi-weekly dances. www.cafe-evolution.com www.dancespirit.org Karma Vegan Cafe and Performance Dance Spree, Northampton, MA Space, Northampton, MA Going strong for 30 plus years. Family Pure, healthy, beautiful food, herbal friendly, social, and in the heart of elixir apothecary, live music and dance downtown Northampton every Friday events in the performance space and evening. www.dancespree.org art gallery. www.bekarma.com Warming heart and soul in the circle at Earthdance.

Lesley University, Cambridge, MA March This pioneer in the field of expressive International Contact Improvisation therapies offers graduate degrees with Jam, Burlington, VT. Led warm-ups, a focus in art, dance, music, or drama. open jamming, performances, and www.lesley.edu underscore. contactimprovvermont. blogspot.com. For more jams check out Samadhi Integral Center, Newton, MA www.contactimprov.com An integral life practice center with regular classes in yoga, meditation, April bodywork, Nia, JourneyDance, Kosmic New England Folk Festival, Mansfield, Pulse, and tribal beat drumming. MA Music, crafts, food, and dance from www.samadhiintegral.com many lands: contra, Morris, English country, swing, clogging, square, and Earthdance in Massachusetts Kripalu Center, Stockbridge, MA international folk dance. www.neffa.org remains snug in winter. Workshops and intensives with world- renowned instructors in the Berkshire May–October WaterFire, Providence, RI. Over 80 Hills. Also home to Let Your Yoga sparkling bonfires and flaming sculp- Pollinate, Northampton, MA Garden Grille Vegetarian Café, Dance, Shake Your Soul, and Journey- tures installed by Barnaby Evans along Expect a college-aged crowd, elec- Pawtucket, RI Dance teacher trainings. the three downtown rivers and Water- tronic music, and “community offer- Drool over a menu that includes www.kripalu.org ings” at the beginning of each dance, everything from vegan nachos to place Park, with fire spinning, world at which presenters share their passions arugula-mango-avocado-beet-infused Bates College, Lewiston, ME music, gondola rides, and more. with the group. jicama-cashew gomasio. www.garden- Comprehensive programs in contem- www.waterfire.org www.facebook.com/pollinate.dance grillecafe.com porary dance, and home of the world- renowned Bates Dance Festival. June Spirit Waves Community Dance, Zabby and Elf’s Stone Soup, Sacred Circle Dance Camp, Sandwich, www.kent.bates.edu/dance Orleans, MA Burlington, VT MA, Five days on Cape Cod for sacred Weekly classes on Cape Cod, including Creative vegan/vegetarian food made Antioch University New England, circle dance, Paneurhythmy, 5 Tibetan YogaDance, and a blend of Soul Mo- from scratch. Menus change daily, Keene, NH rites, Cherokee balance dance, tion, 5Rhythms, and Continuum. www. inspired by seasonal availability and Graduate programs in dance/move- Chi Gong, and chanting. lifecentercapecod.com whimsy. www.stonesoupvt.com ment therapy and counseling in New www.facebook.com/Sacred-Circle- Hampshire’s most bucolic and bustling Dance-Camp-Cape-Cod Dances of Universal Peace, Portland, ME little city. www.antiochne.edu REJUVENATE July Monthly dances led by Elaine McGilli- Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat All That Matters, Wakefield, RI Strolling of the Heifers, Brattleboro, VT. cuddy, “moving to the universal rhythm Center, Falls Village, CT This once-little yoga studio now offers A slow living summit, local food festival, of truth and love.” Transformative experiences integrat- more than 50 weekly yoga classes, and a parade of milk cows (rather than www.portlandyoga.com/dances.html ing ecological awareness, vibrant workshops, a retail store, and health running bulls). Neskaya Movement Arts Center, Jewish spirituality, and social justice. care services. www.allthatmatters.com www.strollingoftheheifers.com Franconia, NH www.isabellafreedman.org Jacobs Pillow, Becket, MA August Offering weekly movement disciplines thd a nc e. o rg Presenting America’s longest-running Dance New England Summer Camp, that are also spiritual practices includ- Western Massachusetts boasts numer- international dance festival, profes- Freedom, NH Eleven days of African, ing Nia, T’ai Chi, and Sacred Circle ous retreat centers including Earth- sional advancement training, extensive ballroom, Contact Improvisation, salsa, Dance in a building designed with dance, Sirius, and Rowe. Dancers will t e sy of E ar archives, and community outreach pro- drum council, yoga, massage, live sacred geometry. www.neskaya.com love their luscious floors, inspirational architecture, and wood-fired saunas grams, “The Pillow” is New England’s music jams, and community living on Spirit Dance, North Kingstown, RI and hot tubs to replenish the soles. home for cutting-edge choreography. Lake Ossipee in the White Mountains. Monthly freestyle dances with a www.dne.org P hotos : C o ur www.massretreats.com www.jacobspillow.org

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 15 The Players Deck by Bodhitrix Check out this hefty little deck of 108 suspended therapeutics, balances like AcroYoga poses, each illustrated with standing or counter, or supine foot and simple line drawings. The motto of hand, plus a dozen variations for trios Bodhitrix is “play to your potential,” and such as the three-headed dragon or the the enterprising English folks behind reverse figure head. Safety and expertise this brilliant deck have done a great are emphasized; these cards should not service for the international AcroYoga replace the knowledge of an experienced community. AcroYoga tends to manifest teacher. Handsomely presented and ring- itself in the gray area between ecstatic bound in a cloth drawstring bag, this deck dance and traditional yoga, and much like is a valuable tool to own and a great gift Contact Improvisation fans, AcroYogis to give. In the words of Plato, “You can seek more connection and community discover more about a person in an hour than solo practitioners. The cards cover of play than in a year of conversation.” categories including stretches and www.bodhitrix.net

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” P hoto T op : M. Me t z / b ottom y ler B la nk

16 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 the body’s business By Debbie Rosas Pulling Together

Sometimes it’s the unlikely combinations that yield Getting Started the greatest discoveries. This was certainly true in regards to the • Do things that creation of Nia. stimulate your body, When I met Carlos Aya Rosas in the early 1980s, he was mind, emotions, and spirit. All realms a professional tennis player—and if you had told me back then must work together that the two of us would develop an international movement for us to achieve practice based on the fusion of dance arts, martial arts, and holistic health. healing arts, I would’ve laughed. • Collaborate with But we did. And I believe the culture that has emerged as people who have a result of this collaboration—one that recognizes the needs different backgrounds but similar goals and of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit—is instrumental in philosophies. our evolution towards becoming holistically healthy beings. It continues to grow, because I’ve looked beyond what I can do as • Connect with old and new acquaint- one individual; I’ve aligned myself with those who have the same ances, especially motivations, the same desires. those who seem Most recently, the Nia Training Faculty increased from 15 strong in areas you’d people to more than 50. I realized these were the women and like to improve. men who could bring what I call their “gifts to bear” to manifest • Listen when others my vision for Nia, and carry it even further than I had originally share their ideas. imagined it could go. Together we will unearth new possibilities Keep a journal of thoughts and con- to shape a consciousness that extends beyond our own. cepts that inspire you.

To learn more about Nia Co-Creator Debbie Rosas, and to access free material on Nia’s current educational course of study, visit NiaNow.com/Education.

seven surefire class fillers

Give Connect Set up a fundraiser, with proceeds Class cards are a great way to build to a favorite cause. Ask staff and a committed dance crew. Offer a volunteers from the organization to group rate as well as a drop-in fee. attend class as well. Enrich Nourish Invite a trainer or celebrity with a Organize a meal after class at your solid following to co-teach with you. favorite eatery or a potluck at a local park. Be neighborly Visit local businesses and offer Pair Up passes to their staff and clients. Invite class members to bring a partner, with a tempting discount for the guest.

Pay it Forward Offer your dance as a gift with no strings attached. Participants, if they are moved into gratitude, pay it forward so others can dance too.

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 17 Being Danced Take the leap toward embodiment by dropping out of your head and into your belly.

We live in a society that values head over heart, intellect over sensation. Our language, culture, and values offer constant reminders that the sensational intelligence of the body is not worth paying much attention to. In his recent book, New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-first Century, Philip Shepherd gives the primacy of body intelligence center stage. Bodily wisdom is not just vital for free and fluid expression, but also offers a path toward living in the present moment. Shepherd’s cogent argument for the value of an embodied culture is meant for all, but carries a special resonance for dancers everywhere. BY PHILIP SHEPHERD

18 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 p hoto.com igor zenin www.zenin Photo-illustration:

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 19 alcolm Gladwell looked at a phenomenon he called makes it worthwhile to consider the conditions that enable it, and “physical genius” in an article of that name in the New to identify some of the obstacles that might keep us from it. Many MYorker. In the article Gladwell, the acclaimed author of of those obstacles are actually created by our culture. For example, Blink and The Tipping Point, considers the accomplishments of we are taught from birth that we have one brain, that it is located physical geniuses as diverse as Wayne Gretzky and Yo-Yo Ma. One in the head, and that it is where our consciousness is located. None of these individuals, the neurosurgeon Charlie Wilson, spoke of of that is actually true. Every cell in the body participates in our being moved by “a sort of invisible hand” as he operated on a brain thinking, as research on neuropeptides has made clear. More than aneurism. In all of these people, Gladwell notices “a distinctive that, we actually have two brains. The second brain is located in the fluidity and grace.” They execute their work with a sense of ease, belly, and it is not a subset of the cranial brain — it is autonomous. harmony, and unity — and an absence of willfulness. These are It thinks, acts, remembers, and perceives. Its importance in the also qualities associated with being “in the zone” — that somewhat psyche is something many other cultures recognize: other-worldly experience athletes in particular speak of, in which everything is seen and felt in vivid detail, and their deep trust in The fact that our second brain … has only recently been the moment enables them to surrender to the world’s energy, find recognized by medical science is a testament to longstanding perfect guidance there, and accomplish remarkable feats. prejudices that do not exist in other cultures. The Incas spoke of qosqo, the center in the belly that receives and digests That sense of being in the zone also occurs in classical Japanese the spiritual energies of the world. In Chinese medicine the Noh theater. The climax of a Noh play is a dance performed by the belly is sometimes called Shen Ch’ue or The Mind Palace and central character as the chorus sings — and the main quality to indi- is considered to be the seat of learning and the repository cate that the dance is going particularly well is when the audience of truth. The Japanese consider the abdomen, or hara, to be has a sense that “the actor is being danced by the chorus.” To me, the place in the body where one experiences the greatest that quality of “being danced” is a sort of pinnacle achievement in possible presence of mind. To ask someone in Japan to think all the performing arts, and is germane to conscious embodiment with his belly is to ask him to ponder an issue with his whole in general. That quality also provides one of the central themes Being and truth. In fact, the Japanese language has a broad of my book, New Self, New World, which looks at it from a number range of expressions in which they use hara where English of perspectives. For instance, this excerpt considers an intriguing uses head. Where we would call a person levelheaded they quote by Jerzy Grotowski, the renowned Polish theatre director: might say hara no aru hito, “the man with the belly”; of someone we found to be hotheaded they might say hara Addressing the problem of an actor’s expressiveness, ga tatsu, “a person whose belly rises”— i.e. in anger; and Grotowski commented, someone who is scatterbrained they might call hara no True expression, one could say, is that of a tree. dekite inai hito, “the man who has not developed his belly.” Such parallels do not merely reflect different ways of seeing Every tree is expressive — from the birch sapling to the a similar issue; something more is going on: these examples gnarled oak to the towering pine. What a tree expresses is represent two different experiences of thinking itself. And it the essence of its very Being, shining through all its living would seem that the differences are created by culture. relationships with the world ... Nothing that is expressed by the tree results from a decision to express. That is what Our culture is so utterly devoted to the preeminence of the head separates the tree from most performers, and it is precisely that it has become normal for us, and we don’t even notice how Grotowski’s point: deep our devotion runs. So we live in an economy based on capital- ism (which literally means “headism”), with major decisions made If the performer expresses, it is because he wants to express. by CEOs (“chief ” is another word that literally means “head”) And so, division once again arises. There is a part of the in corporate headquarters, and we spend our lives trying to get performer which orders, and a part which executes the orders. ahead, as the world around us is organized by heads of church and When “being danced,” the actor achieves an expression like that of state. When we secretly yearn to live in the penthouse, we fail to the tree — there is no self-directing, self-dividing decision to move see that its attractiveness — living above all else, untouched by it, now like this, now like that. The actor’s responsiveness rather remote and detached, yet able to survey it in a glance — is rooted belongs to and expresses the energy of the whole of which he or in our own physical experience of the self: we live in the penthouse she is a part — just as that of the tree does. of the body. It shouldn’t surprise us that much, then, that even though we’ve known for over a hundred years that we actually However you might name it, that experience of abandoned fluidity, have two brains, we can’t quite comprehend it. The information of an unselfconscious, easy grace open to the pulse of the pre- is meaningless to us: our devotion to the head has left us without sent, is something I think all artists long for, and dancers perhaps either the language or the conceptual tools to accommodate the find more often than most. Its centrality to the artist’s experience facts of our own physiology.

20 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 One of the universal principles that shape all life on earth, and And that brings us to the two very different ways by which the even the spiraling galaxies beyond, is that wholes are created male aspect of our consciousness and the female aspect come to by the union of complementary opposites. And the experience know the world. The differences are best understood by looking of “being danced,” lying as it does beyond all the divisions of at the differences between digital information and analog infor- decision-making and self-consciousness, is at its heart a profound mation. A digital recording breaks music into billions of static experience of wholeness. We might recognize, then, that the brain samples (44,100 per second), each of which is converted into a in our cranium and the brain in our gut are equal, opposite, and binary number. When the iPod interprets those binary numbers complementary partners, and that it is in the exchanges between and plays all the samples together, we hear a convincing duplicate them that the wholeness of our consciousness is born. of the original music. An LP, by contrast, has a groove that is shaped by the original waveforms of the music; when the needle If these brains represent the two aspects, or poles, of our of a turntable follows that groove, those waveforms compress the consciousness, then the findings of both physiology and our own experience help us to understand that each has an needle and are eventually heard as sound. In the analog recording essential, specialized function: it’s in the head that we can there is no interpretation, there are no frozen samples, there are consciously think; it’s in the pelvis that we can consciously ‘be.’ no discontinuities. There is just the sound wave, sculpted in vinyl, The dissociated brain in the cranium is as little equipped to ready to express itself as music. bring being into consciousness as the wordless brain in our In applying this metaphor to the two aspects of our consciousness, gut is able to bring rational thinking into consciousness. Of we can see that the male aspect freezes the energy of the world course, the visceral brain does a great deal of thinking, just as into ideas, and systemizes those ideas into a reasonable duplicate the cranial brain is fully participant in being: it’s just that visceral of reality. You can look at a tree, and recognize what it is by apply- thinking is empty of idea, and cranial being is insensate. For that reason, each needs the other’s strength; each finds its com- ing the label “tree” to it, without ever drinking in its particularity. pletion or complement through the other. Being is sensitized to You can do the same thing with every feature of the world around the world with the help of rational thought; rational thought you. Our analog intelligence is very different: joins ‘what is’ only as it is informed by Being. We might simplify All of our senses are informed by analog impression rather further and note that the cranial brain — the realm of will and than measurement: the world’s energy presses upon them, idea — is the center of ‘doing,’ and the abdominal brain is the as the pressure of a door handle upon the palm of our hand. center of ‘being.’ That contrast brings a mythic perspective to And much as a stylus is informed by the waveforms in a the issue, suggesting that the cranial brain is the center of the record groove, our senses are informed about the energy male aspect of our consciousness and the visceral brain the of the world by vibrations: the eye sees waves of light, the center of the female aspect of our consciousness. ear hears vibrations, and we feel heat and cold, wind and As long as we live in our heads, we remain married to male values, texture, all as vibrations. Similarly, the consciousness that which prize systems, control, abstraction, reason, and analysis. joins self and world is analog, and the energetic potential for Wonderful traits, all, but utterly incapable of either feeling or exchange between them might be named the analog axis. creating wholeness. The cultural adoration we heap upon reason In the way that analog audio technology leans on the vibrat- blinds us to its complete impotence in this regard: however hard ing source — the music — and enables its waveform to shape you might try, you cannot reason your way into the present. the groove in the LP, the analog axis allows our sensitivities to lean on the One Source — the present — and receive the To drop out of the head and into the body though — and even impression of all the subtle waveforms of Being. Taken more to the point, to allow your consciousness to descend together, those waveforms, those currents of exchange, through the body and come to rest on the pelvic floor — is to are the one reality. come to rest in the genius of your conscious being. And although “your conscious being” may be defined in many ways, here’s how The choice we face, then, as both artists and citizens of the world, I understand it: your being is what you discover when you are fully is either remaining in the head, which puts us into relationship present. To come fully into being is to come fully into relationship primarily with our own ideas and shoulds and expectations of the with the world around you. It is also, interestingly, to recognize the world; or dropping into the pelvic bowl, and coming to rest in its present as a mindful whole. stillness, and thereby coming into relationship with all that is. To Because we live in our heads, we largely experience things that way: come into relationship with the whole is to feel the guidance of the penthouse of the body is what actually creates the subject/ the whole — and then you are truly “in the zone,” being danced object relationship we have with the world. By contrast, dropping by the world.. down to the ground of our being — the pelvic floor — awakens our sensitivities to a mindful continuum, a dynamic field of (Excerpts are from the author’s book, New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses transforming interrelationships. in the Twenty-first Century)

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 21 22 conscious dancer| WINTER 2011

consciousness ofafewthestarsbeyondstage. or underwaterdance.Here’s aglimpseinto thecreative nerves ofsteeltonavigatethecreative limitsofaerial with thethrillofdanger. Cutting-edgeperformers require waters ofdance,theboundariesspaceandtimewarp For thosewhosoartogreat heightsordivedeepintothe

Photo: Joseph Seif as above, so below

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 23 eif / inset right: courtesyp sy roze gy Jose p h S eif / inset right: ao / inset left: main Photo: Ken p

24 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 www.capacitor.org Capacitor (featuring performer Elliott Gittelsohn on opening spread and facing www.aerialacrobatentertainment.com page), brainchild of environmental theorist and dancer Jodi Lomask, merges art, www.gypsyroze.com science, and movement in staged and natural site-specific environments around the oltani tossa S oltani www.projectbandaloop.org world. Capacitor’s Okeanos, an ocean-themed sensory immersion, opens at Fort Mason in San Francisco in April 2012. Aerial Acrobat Entertainment (facing page) is led by the internationally recognized Guinevere DiPiazza. Isis Vision (opposite lower right), created by Alicia Marie, combines “conscious art and performance” with permaculture projects, most recently seen at Burning Man 2011 with their stellar zipline installation. Project Bandaloop (this page), headed by visionary dancer Amelia Rudolph, has put a new slant on performance since 1991, blending art and nature with spectacle and sheer physicality. main Photo: T odd L aby / inset p hoto: A

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 25 Making Contact looking at the roots of improvisation

Ruth St. Denis Martha Graham ruth st. denis: www.britannica.com / martha graham: www.estrip. denis: www.britannica.com ruth st. M artha- G raham-.html org/articles/read/tinypliny/54259/ W ho-was-

26 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Long before there were jams and camps, the interna- tional dance landscape was guided by brilliant figures towards a culture of possibility. Contributing editor Making Contact Elana Silverman explains some of the connections and lineage that led up to the cultural atmosphere in which looking at the roots of improvisation Contact Improvisation was born. We are also delighted to complement this historical look back with an account of the evolution of CI from Nancy Stark Smith, Contact Quarterly founder and movement pioneer.

Dancing all-male company “Ted Shawn and His Troublemakers Men Dancers” and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, which still draws the world’s most by elana silverman prominent cutting-edge choreographers to When Isadora Duncan ditched her ballet New England each summer. shoes and corset to don Grecian gowns After studying under Shawn and and embody the movements of nature St. Denis, Denishawn student Martha in the early 1900s, she set a precedent Graham founded her own school in for the rest of the century. Duncan’s soft 1926 and went on to become one of the tunics, bare feet, and flowing movements best-known choreographers of the 20th challenged her contemporaries’ assump- century. Dramatic and intense, Graham’s tions about what kind of dance belongs choreography expressed inner emotion onstage. Before Duncan, classical ballet as a universal human experience, drawing had dominated the Western proscenium inspiration from sources including myth, for centuries. After Duncan, breaking American history, psychology, and fine art. away from the form became the norm. Graham also created a notoriously rigorous The 20th century saw an endless string technique based in contraction and release of codification and rebellion in which that still informs many of the exercises protégés mastered their teachers’ forms, practiced in modern dance classes today. then proceeded to disregard all the rules In contrast, José Limon soon after and create their own style. created a technique explicitly focused on Ruth St. Denis came next. Fascinated the relationship of the human body to by the spiritual and movement traditions gravity, emphasizing fall and recovery in a of Eastern cultures, she created works looser, floppier style. This technique can inspired by her studies of “The Orient.” Incorporating spirituality, music visualiza- “These innovations tions, and her studies of Hindu art and philosophy, a typical St. Denis choreog- set the stage for raphy might include shapes and costumes borrowed from classical Indian dance, the anarchy that belly dance, and Flamenco traditions, set on bodies trained in classical ballet. would follow.” Though much of St. Denis’ work would now be considered appropriation, as she now be found alongside Graham’s influ- didn’t thoroughly study many of the forms ence in many a contemporary dance class. that inspired her choreography, at the Meanwhile, Lester Horton developed his time this fusion style was groundbreaking. own athletic, isolation-heavy style, which After marrying dancer Ted Shawn in would later be adopted by Alvin Ailey and 1914, the couple opened the Denishawn infused with music and movement from School of Dancing, training artists like the African American community. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and When Graham company alum Merce Charles Weidman. Shawn was one of Cunningham began creating his own works the first to advocate for the place of the in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the rules Merce Cunningham male body onstage, founding both the of the game changed. Together with his ompany merce cunningham: courtesy of M erce C unningham D ance ompany

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 27 life and artistic partner, musician John dancers in various companies, but when Curt Siddall from the Weber Gallery Cage, Cunningham ditched the narrative they performed as the Grand Union, performances, and formed a company choreographic form, challenging dance’s they improvised with no plan, no set called Reunion that met every year for a relationship to music, space, art and choreography. few years to tour the West Coast, teach- architecture, and technology. Cunningham In 1972, the Grand Union was invited ing classes and giving performances of and Cage set choreography to the music to Oberlin College, where I was a student, Contact Improvisation. of chairs scraping and audience members for a month-long January residency. Instead of copyrighting the form, we clearing their throats, or created a choreo- Steve taught a 7 a.m. class called the created a newsletter, where everyone who graphic and musical score based purely on “Soft Class.” We would come into a was involved could write about what was chance. These innovations set the stage for beautiful old wooden men’s gymnasium, going on with them. That was the origin of the anarchy that would follow. and there would be a chair at the door the Contact Newsletter, in 1975, which is In the early 1960s, a Cunningham and with a box of Kleenex and a little plate of now Contact Quarterly magazine (with a CI Cage collaborator named Robert Dunn cut-up fruit. You took a tissue and a piece newsletter in it). began teaching a composition class to a of fruit and came into the gym. Steve After the first Reunion tour in 1975, group of visual artists, musicians, and led us in standing still, the small dance, the number of contactors grew consider- dancers at Cunningham’s studio in New while we kind of fell asleep and woke up, ably. By the late 1970s/early 1980s, several York City. In July of 1962, this group and also did some yoga-like breathing notable contact companies had formed — performed its first concert on the gym exercises. Then you’d blow your nose and Mangrove, Contactworks, Catpoto, Fulcrum, floor of the Judson Church in Greenwich eat the fruit, and after an hour, the sun Freelance, and others — in San Francisco, Village. This “post-modern” group came up and that was the end of the class. Minneapolis, Montreal, Vancouver, and extolled form over content, exploring I had no idea what we were doing but I New York, each bringing its own distinctive improvisation, structure, natural and was curious and somehow very moved. approach to the body of work. pedestrian movements, breath, stillness Steve got a small travel grant and From the beginning, people asked, and silence, and countless other themes decided to bring a group together in “Well, is this dance?” Big question. It came that had been largely excluded from New York City in June of 1972 to do a from a dance-art mind and intention. It modern dance. Artists affiliated with the performance project. We worked for one came at a time in American history, and Judson Church Theater went on to create week in a loft studio that had a small blue probably world history, when established new elements of modern dance; these wrestling mat. We practiced a lot of rolling roles — of gender, authority, etc.— were innovators included Steve Paxton (Contact techniques — forward, backward, aikido, being questioned. Part of it was a change Improvisation), Trisha Brown (site-specific invented rolls, handstand-rolldowns — in in the way dance was made, that it could be dance), Meredith Monk (multi-disciplinary order to be comfortable falling and rolling made collaboratively. Also you had women performance art), and Anna Halprin in different directions. We’d dance in lifting men; I didn’t think much about it (dance art therapy). This group shattered duets on the mat: we’d try things, explore then, but when we would show the work, any lingering illusions that American possibilities while improvising in contact. people were amazed by things like that — modern dance could be easily defined After one week of practice, we moved by falling, by being on the floor, or by men or recognized. At the same time, they to an art gallery in downtown New York being sensitive with each other, women introduced themes and innovations that City (the John Weber Gallery), set up the being strong, people being a little bit out of opened doors to ecstatic dance, fusion mat and performed for five hours a day for control, and the pure physicality of it. forms, 5Rhythms, Nia, and much of a week. These were the first performances There’s no set pedagogy or certified today’s vibrant dance culture. of Contact Improvisation. Steve made way to teach contact. Because of this a postcard announcement — on the freedom, people have created a lot of Harvest: One front was a picture of the Coney Island teaching material — principles, exercises, language, scores, formats. I think the jam parachute jump, a ride at the amusement History of Contact model came from Steve’s experience with park. He also went to Chinatown and had Improvisation the martial arts and the dojo mentality of fortune cookies made with a fortune that by nancy stark smith people at different levels training together. said something like, “Come to John Weber The Breitenbush Jam in Oregon was one Contact Improvisation was created in Gallery — contact improvisations,” and we of the first retreat jams, at a beautiful, 1972 by American dancer and choreogra- gave them to everybody in the street. remote hot springs. After a few years, pher Steve Paxton, who danced in the early The nature of this form is that you another jam started at the Harbin Hot 1960s with Merce Cunningham’s company. need a partner to do it, and I think this is Springs in California. Next came an East During this time, Steve took a composition one of the most important reasons it has Coast Jam and then festivals started and class with Robert Ellis Dunn that gradually spread. To get a partner, you have to make facilities (like Arlequi in Spain and Earth- evolved into the Judson Dance Theater. one; you have to find a way to communi- dance in Massachusetts) began to offer The Grand Union, an outgrowth of cate the form. Many of us tried to share it, regular CI workshops and events. Judson, was a dance / theater / improvisa- to create partners so we could continue to . tion group that included Steve along with dance. And it started to grow. Excerpts from Harvest: One History of Contact Improvisation, Yvonne Rainer, David Gordon, Trisha Three years later, in 1975, Steve asked a talk given by Nancy Stark Smith at the Freiburg Contact Festival in 2005, published in Contact Quarterly, Vol. Brown, Barbara Dilley, Douglas Dunn, if I would tour with him in the Northwest 31#2, Summer/Fall 2006. For more information, visit and Nancy Green. The members were U.S. We joined up with Nita Little and nancystarksmith.com or contactquarterly.com. P hoto: R aisa Kylli kk i Karjalainen

28 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Nancy Stark Smith

“It came at a time in American history, and probably world history, when established roles — of gender, authority, etc. — were being questioned.” vitality

Step Up! The joy of giving extends far beyond the dance floor. by Rachel Trachten

oving beyond the traditional “sea- hard to schedule, she notes that the clos- after dancing with fellow students. “The son of giving,” Conscious Dancer ing circle marks people coming together best way to ensure that I am ‘manifesting Mreaders shared their thoughts and honors the collective experience as well generosity’ after dance class,” says Lojeck, and news about year-round generosity in as the generosity of the person who pro- “is by sharing only things that are positive, our dance communities. From New York vided the snack. generate light, and uplift the soul. That to Missouri to California, dancers told us Heather Munro Pierce, who leads Trans- goes for food, and words. So, when I peel about reaching out in every season—by Dance® workshops, circles, and retreats, my post-dance-class orange, and offer some sharing food and drink, offering kindness, often hosts a potluck meal as part of a dance wedges to my classmates, or pass out some and dancing for a gentler, more sustainable series. “For me, it’s natural after exerting extra coconut waters, I am sharing food that world. Following is a sampling of ideas and and expressing physically through dance is energizing and healthy. Similarly, when inspirations on movement, connection, to nourish and replenish together,” says I smile at my classmates and say, ‘great and generosity. Pierce. Sometimes she also creates a more breakthroughs today’ or ‘wasn’t that the At Soul Sanctuary Dance in Berkeley, ritualized sharing of food. After preparing best?’ or even when I just allow blissful California, the plate of shared fruit at the meal together, the group ritually offers silence as we all towel off the sweat and closing circle completes the experience a plate of food to each person, creating a change back into our street clothes, I am for Wowlvenn Seward-Katzmiller, whose heightened awareness of the meal as nour- giving in a generous spirit. Dance is self- three-year-old daughter, Elka Rose, eagerly ishment and of the body as a temple. “Just nurturing, and so anything that is shared awaits the apples or grapes and the fun of as there’s a magic in dancing together,” says after class, food or words, should continue passing the plate around. “We all arrive with Pierce, “the act of breaking bread together to support that nourishment.” our different lives, but after the dance you is a sacred act.” Generous acts start at home for members also have the common experience of the Dancer Adrienne Lojeck, who studies of Gateway Nia, a community of Nia teach- space and the dance that you’re ingesting improvisation at Stony Brook University, ers in the heartland of St. Louis and Metro and sharing,” says Seward-Katzmiller. At follows a path of generosity by carefully East. This group welcomes new members

a time when even a family dinner can be considering the nourishment that she shares into their community with a gift when they Photo: flickr – Mikaela

30 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 receive their Nia White Belts. As members continue their Nia journey they receive belt- specific gifts to mark these milestones. “It has been a beautiful way for us to recognize and celebrate one another,” says Black Belt instructor Tracy Stamper. About five years ago, Stamper was moved to expand on this idea and the “Gateway Nia Love Fund$” were born. The group col- lects voluntary donations from its members, and uses these funds to support their sister teachers when the need arises. “For exam- ple,” says Stamper, “we’ve delivered flowers Simple and Sublime, A Salad for Every Potluck and a teddy bear to a local Nia instructor This time of year, there are many opportunities for sharing meals, whether it’s as she returned home from surgery, sent a casual potluck or a special celebration. Sharing food that we’ve prepared love and sunshine through flowers to a ourselves is a meaningful way to connect and nourish our bodies, minds, and member who lost a parent, and launched a relationships. The recipe below has a few steps, but is not difficult, and you’ll be card campaign (all of us sent cards of sup- rewarded for your efforts. port on the same day) to another teacher who was going through a rough time. It has Farro is a grain related to wheat that has been enjoyed since ancient times. It’s been a beautiful way to support one another high in fiber, protein, and nutrients, non-GMO, and absolutely delicious—nutty, not just professionally, but also personally full-flavored, and with an appealingly chewy texture. For a gluten-free version, in community.” substitute 1 cup brown rice or a mixture of brown and wild rice. This is a great Dance performance artist Susan Osberg salad to bring to a potluck or a holiday dinner—it’s just as scrumptious at room uses her dance talents in support of the temperature as it is warm. Serves 4 to 6. environment. Osberg is making a site- specific piece, Tree, as part of a Kickstarter tossed farro with butternut squash, herbs, and walnuts fundraiser for Hiddenbrooke, a preserve 1½ to 2 cups peeled and chopped butternut squash* of springs, woods, fields, and wildlife that ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons has become a public space for the city of 1½ cups farro or other grain Beacon, New York. ⅓ cup chopped walnuts or pecans For members of the Dancing Lotus 1 small to medium red onion, chopped small Center in Helena, Montana, reaching out 2 tablespoons chopped thyme, rosemary, and/or sage means going far beyond their own com- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar munity. Leaders Kathryn Kelley and Kelly 2 or more tablespoons red wine vinegar Baraby host Nia/Yoga Saturdays through- ¼ cup dried cherries or currants, optional out the year to raise funds for local and sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste international organizations. (An hour of Toss the butternut squash in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, spread in a single layer on energizing Nia is followed by an hour of a sheet pan, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a 425 degree oven until gentle, restorative yoga.) People make tender and golden, then set aside. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees. Add the donations and share in the dance and grain to a pot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer community. The group has raised funds and cook until tender. Drain in a colander, put in a bowl, and set aside. Spread for Haiti, Partners in Health, Food Share, the chopped nuts out on a sheet pan in the oven, and toast until just turning March of Dimes, Montana Shares, Truth in golden, about 5 to 7 minutes. Set aside. Progress, and others. “Creating these events to benefit helping organizations or indi- Cook the onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat until it has just viduals in need,” says Kelley, “helps us bring turned translucent and perhaps a bit golden. Add to the bowl with the cooked together a community of like-hearted folks grain. Also add the rest of the olive oil, the herbs, walnuts, vinegars, dried fruit who believe that raising awareness through if using, and the nuts. Season with salt and generous grindings of freshly ground dance and energy connection is one way to pepper, then toss well. Gently stir in the butternut squash, and then taste again heal the world and bring people together for seasoning. Add more salt or red wine vinegar to make the flavors really pop, with love.” then serve warm or at room temperature. Inspired by dancers from around the globe, the attitudes that develop on com- *note: To prepare the squash, first cut off the stem end and the very bottom of munity dance floors foster a culture of the squash. Use a sharp vegetable peeler to peel the skin off, then carefully cut contribution. While holidays and special it in half vertically. Scoop out the seeds and then chop. The more evenly you cut occasions surely encourage sharing, dancers the pieces, the more evenly they will cook. are finding myriad ways to tap into the spirit Recipe by nutrition consultant and culinary instructor Dara Merin, who teaches cooking classes in Photo: dara m erin of generosity year round.. Oakland, California. www.thesagetable.com

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 31 sounds

Reverence and Resonance Sacred music evokes a high vibration among fans and musicians alike. by Lloyd Barde

ance and Music, supreme partners vibration from another source at or near outside of us unites this whole. Whether in the song of life, go all the its own natural frequency. Just as dance the awareness of reverence is triggered Dway back in time, and will take is the path upon which many of us move or generated through other persons, in us through the journey. Like Shiva and through life, there is much to experience nature, or simply in the unwinding and Shakti and the eternal dance of energy when we really listen to music: drama, release of our own tensions is not impor- and consciousness, the union of rev- tension, balance, pathos, ecstasy—all the tant. Applying genuine curiosity to find erence and resonance is discovered elements that make dance and music as out what lies beyond our patterned think- over and over when we are engaged in potent as they are. ing and behavior—even how we move and mindful movement. Reverence is the feeling that makes an listen—is the key to this exploration. Accessing the doorways into which these experience sacred, and music can magnify I recently spoke with Sean Johnson, who worlds meet can be accentuated by tuning this experience. Reverence works hand in had come with his Wild Lotus Band from in to both reverence and resonance. In the hand with the resonance that occurs when New Orleans to the Bay Area where I live. world of music, resonance is an amplifi- we go beyond surface meaning through He reflected on creating reverence as a cation of a sound. It may be that of an increased awareness. This gives rise to musician: “To build an altar and light can- instrument or the human voice, caused by feelings of deep respect or devotion. Per- dles enhances the devotional atmosphere sympathetic vibration in a chamber such as haps this is why when we exert ourselves, and brings the reverence from within. What an auditorium or a singer’s chest. In dance, sweat, and move beyond our edges, we feel I love about playing music, especially kir- this experience of resonance is enhanced closer to, if not enveloped by, a Higher tan, is that there is a personal experience as simply by proximity to another person, Source. To then remember that this energy well as sharing it with the group. By tuning

sound, vibration, or attentive noticing of is always there and is inside rather than in to all of this, the resonance happens, and Photo: A bhi m anyu Sabni s

32 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 it is authentic when both are held equally.” “To build an altar and light Asked about his personal experience of leading these events, he said, “Holding the candles enhances the awareness of going deeper in myself, yet devotional atmosphere guiding the group by feeding the energy is the surrender.” and brings the reverence The power of the group and the space also creates its own form of reverence. At from within. What I love Barefoot Boogie in Berkeley, California, about playing music, one of the founders had been going through some serious health issues. When especially kirtan,is she was finally able to return to her sacred that there is a personal community dance space, she shared her experience: “It was one of the reasons experience as well as I went dancing (even though I basically just stood at the middle of the dance floor). sharing it with the group.” The human connection is just as healing time to ancient shamanistic rituals. Music, as the pills and treatment that's ahead of as a tool of healing, was recognized in me. I felt completely safe surrounded by the writings of Pythagoras, Aristotle, and all the dancing bodies, taking in the love Plato as a positive influence on physical, and support!” emotional, cognitive, and social well-being. Many studies have validated this kind of When the music is dancing your soul, experience by showing the deeper benefits and the dance sings to you from the soles of listening to and playing music. The of your feet, the one pointed stillness, or growing field of music therapy is present- bindu, that is written about in ancient texts ing increasing evidence that points toward and scriptures becomes palpable and real. the greater powers of music. By common In yoga, the word bindu refers to the stage observation, professional medical practi- in meditation where all one’s experiences tioners have linked music to our well-being converge into a point and expand into and general health. A recent study by The pure awareness. Perhaps you have had that NAMM Foundation, whose mission is ecstatic experience rise freely as you have to advance active participation in music danced to music that aligns itself with your making across the lifespan, concludes own unique resonance. In the space of rev- that listening to music has positive health erence, listening can deepen, the spirit can effects on people of all ages. The therapeu- soar, and the embodied dancer can freely tic benefits of music can be traced back in fly as never before.. Photo: keith kelly

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 33 Greater Bay Area

The 5Rhythms practice is a physical, emotional and spiritual curriculum that systematically leads us all back to our original aliveness.

CLASSES & SWEAT YOUR PRAYERS WORKSHOPS contact teacher for exact location Write of Passage: with Lori Saltzman A morning rhythm & writing group Mill Valley, CA 7 – 9:30pm 5Rhythms Mountain View (Claire Alexander) Mountain View January 24-May 15, every other Tuesday 9-11:30am MON movingcenterschool.com Waves: Being Danced with Andrea Juhan 6:30 – 8:30pm Waves of Awakening (Stacey Butcher & Davida Taurek) Mill Valley January 27-29, 2012 Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA 7 – 8:30pm Sweat Your Prayers (Jennifer Burner) Santa Rosa TUES esalen.org Heartbeat: Ferocious Heart with Andrea Juhan February 3-5, 2012 Los Angeles, CA 7 – 9pm Waves Journey (Sylvie Minot) Sausalito movinground.com 7 – 9pm Almost Weekly Practice (Claire Alexander) Santa Cruz Waves: Feet First with Claire Alexander

WED (no class on the 1st Wednesday of the month) February 3-5, 2012 Minneapolis, MN pinklotusmovementcafe.com 7 – 9pm Awakening In Motion (Saša Bencinaˇ ) Monterey Heartbeat: Living HeartFully with Claire Alexander March 2-4, 2012 Santa Cruz, CA 10:15am – Moving Meditation Class Series Mill Valley ecstaticproductions.com 12:15pm (Kathy Altman & Lori Saltzman) Equanimity: Opening and Closing with Lori Saltzman 6:30 – 8:30pm Winter Series Drop-In (Bella) Sacramento March 3, 2012 Mill Valley, CA movingcenterschool.com THUR 6:30 – 8:30pm Embodied Waves (Stacey Butcher & Charlie Korda) San Francisco Waves: Light & Shadow with Kathy Altman 7 – 9pm Sweat Your Prayers (David Taurek) San Geronimo March 23-25, 2012 Sacramento, CA bodyjoy.net Cycles: The Heart’s Expansion with Andrea Juhan March 29 - April 1, 2012 Mountain View, CA 10 – Noon Sweat Your Prayers (Bella & Guest Teachers) Sacramento ecstaticproductions.com SUN

“Movement practice is all about uncovering long suppressed instincts. It trains you to see with your third eye and listen with your third ear. In testy moments, we need a practice, something to fall back on, a pipeline to our inner truth, or we will fi nd ourselves helpless, surrendering to the will of our heads, not our guts.” – Gabrielle Roth

CONTACTS

Andrea Juhan Claire Alexander Kathy Altman & Lori Saltzman Stacey Butcher Big Sur Mountain View & Santa Cruz Mill Valley - Sausalito - San Rafael Mill Valley & San Francisco openfl oor.org ecstaticproductions.com movingcenterschool.com staceybutcher.com 831.406.1603 408.829.7366 415.887.9399 415.755.7905

Bella Dreizler Davida Taurek Saša Bencinaˇ Sylvie Minot Sacramento Mill Valley & San Geronimo Monterey Sausalito bodyjoy.net davidadance.com www.somatichealingarts.org syzygydanceproject.com 916.267.5478 5RhythmsWavesofAwakening.com 415.987.7662 415.272.1896 415.455.8981 Charlie Korda San Francisco Jennifer Burner 5rhythmssanfrancisco.com Santa Rosa 707.295.5841 elementsofmovement.vpweb.com 415.200.7559 35 Education 42 Book Reviews 36 Events & Performances 44 DVD Review 37 Festivals 44 MixMasters Top 10 38 Retreats & Workshops 46 Results Movement Menu Visit www.ConsciousDancer.com for the global directory, and sign up for the monthly eZine! w i n t e r h i g h l i g h t s

education

Vital Development Esalen JourneyDance Module 1: Work Study Month Five-Day Intensive Teacher Training DEC 25–JAN 22 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA JAN 18–23 • San Antonio, TX Are you ready to unfurl your soul from its chrysalis An exciting opportunity to work with Toni Bergins, and take flight? Join Jaquelin Levin-Zabare for a creator of JourneyDance, at The Synergy Studio. 28-day immersion in Esalen’s integrative approach This training is meant for everyone who loves to to personal and social development. The program dance including yoga teachers, dance instructors, will offer a rigorous course of Vital Development and movement therapists. Take a powerful and Biodanza. It will be a rich and challenging opportunity transformative journey: dance your fiery rhythmic Learn Danyasa with Sofiah Thom - pg. 36 to embody the idea that mental, physical, emotional, beats. Rise and fall in waves of melodic passionate spiritual, and social dimensions of the self are pulsation. Dive into the ocean of your emotions. inextricably connected. The fusion of music, emotion, Inspire your heart to lead you and share its secrets. voice work, creativity, ceremony, and community, Feel your aliveness! explored through movement, our most primal form www.thesynergystudio.com of expression, is vital in this group process to evoke a higher consciousness grounded in peace, pleasure, BUTI Level 1 Teacher Certification kindness, joy, self-confidence, and well-being. JAN 20–22 • Denver, CO www.biodanza-dancesoflife.com BUTI is a fusion of power yoga, dance, and plyometrics that seamlessly connects yoga poses American Dance Festival January Intensive to plyometric circuits and BUTI shaking cardio. DEC 30–JAN 9 • New York, NY Although BUTI utilizes a variety of dance styles, no choreography is used. This teacher training will Have you considered making NYC your dance home? Get fresh at the Raw Spirit Festival - pg. 36 include BUTI Basics, Structuring Your Class, Anatomy The American Dance Festival (ADF) January Intensive and Injury Prevention, Fitness and Endurance Test, offers nine days of classes, panels, performances, as well as marketing your BUTI classes. Throughout and more. Study with outstanding teachers, learn in the BUTI classes, attention is paid to stretching each a supportive environment that offers individualized muscle group worked to achieve faster recovery time. attention, hear about the NY dance scene from the Each workout is finished with a yoga-based restorative artists who define it, and watch open rehearsals and practice and a five-minute savasana meditation. performances. Past faculty include Robert Battle, www.butiyoga.com Trisha Brown, David Dorfman, Eiko and Koma, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Meredith Monk, Lisa Race, Shen Wei, and Doug Varone. Introduction to www.americandancefestival.org Anatomy and Kinesiology MAR 3–4 • New York, NY Kundalini Hoop Dance Telecourse As part of the two-day introductory workshop series, Take flight with Biodanza - pg. 35 JAN 4–FEB 22 students will explore the skeletal-muscular system experientially through functional and expressive Join Kundalini Hoop Dance in a journey dedicated movement, activation of the subjective body, group to your personal growth and empowerment through discovery of your self, activation of your chakras, discussion, and hands-on work with Anastasi Siota. and cultivation of your power to transform with the This workshop is required for entry into the LIMS® hoop! This series will include: eight 1.5-hour teleclass Certification Program in Laban Movement Studies. conference calls; a copy of our publication Primordial Laban Movement Analysis provides a comprehensive Spin-Inter-Galactivation Guidebook; a series of online vocabulary and analytic framework for the description of videos guiding you through the mudras, tones, human movement. Using LMA, one can systematically and affirmations for each chakra; a one-hour phone look at a unit or phrase of movement in terms of the four consultation with Kandice; a holistic practice hoop of major movement components: Body, Effort, Shape, and your choice; and continued email support throughout Space. These basic components can be identified and the program and beyond. examined alone and in relationship to each other.

orrest, C ourtesyM . etz. Biodanza, photos from top: M ichael Julian Berz, Brandon Jaffers, J. F orrest, www.kundalinihoopdance.com Beach learning at Blue Spirit - pg. 38 www.limsonline.org

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 35 the inherent goodness that life has to offer. Master the old year and a blessed beginning EDUCATION CONTINUED Baptiste teachers Claire Este-McDonald and of the new one. (Tuesday evening–Sunday afternoon) Gregor Singleton bring more than 25 combined www.earthdance.net 200-Hour Danyasa® Inspired Yoga Teacher years of daily classroom teaching at the successful Training For Living Artfully Baptiste studios in Massachusetts. A New Year 5Rhythms® Gathering MAR 9–30 • Dominical, Costa Rica www.kripalu.org DEC 28–JAN 2 • Findhorn, Scotland The pristine beaches and jungles of Costa Rica provide the backdrop for a transformative Held in the Universal Hall Arts Center in the life-enhancing experience—an immersion into Dervish Sufi Turn Classes Findhorn EcoVillage Community, this gathering is yoga and embodiment as a way of life.This unique 2nd and 4th Sundays • Portland, OR open to everyone. Located in Northeast Scotland, teacher training with Sofiah Thom, Larry Thraen, “A secret turning in us makes the universe turn. Head the Findhorn community is a major international and Shawn Roop provides a solid foundation in unaware of feet, and feet head. Neither cares. They center for personal and spiritual transformation the fundamentals of hatha yoga, tantra yoga, and keep turning.” - Rumi. The Portland Mevlevi Order of and sustainable living. It is situated on a two-mile peninsula among sand dunes, woodland, and vinyasa yoga, fused with principles of expressive America will be offering whirling dervish turn classes beautiful beaches. Deborah Jay-Lewin and Adam Barley, who first met in 1994 training with Gabrielle Roth, will bring a wealth of experience as leaders of this celebration. Ample time will be provided for dancing with and without music, shared bodywork, daily taught classes, Sweat Your Prayers®, use of the hot tub, and a late night Hogmanay Party! www.bodysurfscotland.co.uk

Eve of New Year’s Eve 11th Annual Blacklight & White Ball DEC 30 • Fairfax, CA This end-of-year celebration provides a welcome alternative to traditional New Year’s Eve gatherings. Always held on the 30th of December, the ball takes place in a beautifully transformed environment, awash in the hues of blacklight and sparkles, on a feet-friendly hardwood floor. Dancers arrive dressed in the theme of all-white attire as DJs Dragonfly and Kaminanda spin massive global grooves on an impressively large sound system. At midnight, Suzanne Sterling leads the revelry through the traditional rite of an ecstatic spiral dance. www.thegroovegarden.com

The beauty of Bali beckons New Year’s Dance Revelry with dance, music, and yoga at Harbin Hot Springs at the Bali Spirit Festival. pg. 38 DEC 30–JAN 2 • Middletown, CA Gather with a community of movers and mystics to dance in the New Year. Let your heart unravel in soulful reflection and playful celebration on land and healing arts, contemplative movement practice, and to both new and experienced students. These classes in water. This three-day weekend is an opportunity somatic psychology. Learn new flow sequences and are open to the public and are an opportunity to to dive deep into the unabashed expression of your philosophies for combining yoga with expressive experience the spiritual practices in the tradition self. There will be DJs and dancing each night and dance, become initiated into the tools for guiding of the poet and Sufi spiritual leader Hz. Mevlana morning. You will be able to dance with dolphins in students in the arts of a life well lived, bridging Jelaluddin Rumi. Turn classes will include poetry, a private pool with underwater music and to practice heaven and earth as one in this unique wazifas (chanting), and learning the techniques of Contact Improvisation on water and land. You will creative exploration. the turn and the symbolism of the practice. have plenty of free time to soak, flow, schmooze, www.bambooyogaplay.com www.hayatidede.org connect, and let your silliness, depth, and bliss arise! www.lunabaron.com Nia Blue Belt Training Hawthorne Laughter Club MAR 17–23 • Honolulu, HI Every Sunday 4 to 4:50 PM • Portland, OR Raw Spirit New Year’s Festival Dance off the winter in gorgeous Hawaii and LY (Laughter Yoga) is a mind-body exercise system DEC 30–Jan 1 • Phoenix, AZ bloom as a Nia teacher this March. Debbie Rosas, that combines playfulness and unconditional laughter Billed as “the world’s leading, largest, and longest- co-creator and founder of Nia, and Winalee Zeeb, with Pranayama and other movement disciplines. A lived raw vegan-eco-peace celebration,” the Raw Black Belt, will be teaching the Nia Blue Belt Training Laughter Yoga session supports the achievement of Spirit Festival will celebrate the New Year in Phoenix. in Honolulu. Open to all White Belt graduates, this sustained hearty laughter without jokes. Be ready With a theme of Inspiration, Education, Meditation, seven-day experience is all about communication, to use whole-body movement while vocalizing. and Celebration, participants can expect to have relationship, and intimacy. The training will take place Group leader Laura Lou Pape-McCarthy, CLYL, has plenty of fun while learning the latest about health, at the stunning Still & Moving Center, Oahu’s most a background in circus clowning, acrobatics, and eco, and spiritual living via dynamic presentations and comprehensive mind-body movement center offering group fitness. Explore range of movement, practice musical performances, including educational sessions aerial yoga, hula, conscious dance, massage, and awareness of size and emotional content of physicality. by an eclectic array of doctors and authors. Held at more. Train with the top Nia teachers and then dive www.1laughatatimeonline.com Phoenix’s most magnificent five-star resort, the JW into the warm, tropical waves of Aloha! Marriott Desert Ridge, in the Wildflower Ballroom. www.nianow.com Pre-registration is recommended and tickets EVENTS & PERFORMANCES are limited. www.rawspirit.com or [email protected] Live Your Yoga, Teach Your Yoga MAR 18–23 • Kripalu Center, Stockbridge, MA The New Year’s Jam: Celebrate This training for all yoga teachers gives you DEC 27–JAN 1 • Earthdance, Plainfield, MA Luminous Conscious New Year’s Eve confidence in your innate magnetism as a teacher and Earthdance’s biggest Contact Improvisation event of DEC 31 • Chicago, IL human being and your ability to communicate the the year! What better way to let go of holiday stress As time transitions, Luminous New Year’s Eve is ancient practices of yoga as accessible experiences and ring in the New Year than to dance till the wee Chicago’s conscious celebration. Held at Temple for students of all levels. Through teaching and direct hours? Frosty air, a ritual bonfire, twinkling winter Synphorium, where three intimate rooms provide feedback, you gain the skills and understanding stars, and plenty of warm bodies on the dance floor. body-movement opportunities. Onederland presents needed to teach a daily yoga practice that leaves Every year it is a special event, co-created by the belly dance and acroyoga plus dream-motion and students empowered, inspired, and connected to body-temple dance music; Eden provides freestyle people who attend. Come imagine a magical end of photo: courtesy b ali spirit fest

36 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Join Winalee Zeeb and Debbie Rosas for a Nia Earn your Nia Blue Belt with Blue Belt training at the Debbie Rosas and Winalee new Still & Moving Center Zeeb at the new Still & Moving in Honolulu. pg. 36 Center in Honolulu. pg. 38

uptempo funk and EBM; Karma Lounge offers hoop/ Texas Yoga Conference Theater. This festival will feature hosts Urban Gypsy, flag/poi spinning, plus freestyle dancing to the extended FEB 17–19 • Houston, TX Houston’s premiere Tribal Style Dance troupe, and groups/instructors including Olivia Kissel, Anahata, drum circle; all this followed by yoga/Tai Chi via live sitar The third annual Texas Yoga Conference at the BellaNaTana, Drishti Dancers, Deb Rubin, Donna, music. Other rooms provide healing and bodywork. University of Houston’s Recreation and Wellness Mejia, Trybe Habibi Bizarre, April Rose, Silvia Luminous is a “chosen family” of open-hearted, body- Center will offer space for yoga students, teachers, Salamanca, Zoe Jakes, and James Hazlerig. There will aware, non-intoxicated spirits. We gather under the and organizations of diverse lineages to come be various workshops, lecture discussions, and classes common umbrella of life-positive peace and bliss. together and share their love of yoga. This year’s like Clarifying Technique: The Art of Refinement and www.LuminousNYEve.com lineup includes a book signing with Miao Tsan and Physical Integrity; Musicality for Belly Dancers; a Desert Dwellers concert, as well as programs Infinite Innerspace: Extracting Inspiration from like Yoga: Eliminating Difference and Celebrating All Places; Feast of Fusion; and Dance Like a Timbavati New Year’s Celebration: OASIS Oneness, The Yoga Approach to Relationships, DEC 31 • Santa Cruz, CA Ancient and Modern Yoga in Conversation, Rocking Goddess: Group Hypnosis. Do you want more movement, beauty, community, the Sacred Heart Yoga, and Teaching Consciousness www.3rdcoasttribal.us intimacy, and expansion in your celebration? This and Asanas to Beginners. New Year’s Eve in Santa Cruz will be the third annual www.texasyogaconference.com Tribal Spirit: International Timbavati New Year’s Celebration. Timbavati is 5Rhythms Gathering Zulu for “the place where a star falls.” This year will Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company Jan 20–30 • Maui, HI include a dance jam with Baron von Spirit from Mass FEB 24–25 • Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA Come experience 10 days of dancing magic on the Transit Dance, spoken word with sacred slam poetess beautiful island of Maui. This is the third annual Jasmine Schlafke, tantric healing ring with Datta Bill T. Jones—whose major honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Award, the Kennedy Center Tribal Spirit and the tradition is growing! Gathering Khalsa, a kung fu ceremonial tea service, and late teachers and dancers from all over the world, Tribal night guided meditation with Laura Bishop. Honor, and a Tony Award for Best Choreography for the Broadway hit FELA!—returns to Zellerbach Hall to Spirit celebrates the WE that is changing the world www.timbavati.info perform a thrilling new multidisciplinary work. Jones’s through conscious movement. January 20–22 is the inventive choreography will accompany a cascade of weekend Tribal Gathering with eight teachers of AXIS Dance Company poignant short stories drawn from his life, as narrated 5Rhythms holding the container for us to celebrate by Jones himself from the stage. Original music and our love of dance with all the flavors and spice of our JAN 23–29 • Miami Beach, FL film will create the environment for Jones’s charismatic different cultures and shared language. Spend a few Prepare to leave all your preconceptions at the door. performance presence and his unique company of days enjoying the wonders of Maui and then dive AXIS Dance Company based in Oakland, California, dancers, now in its 29th year. “One of the glories of into Spirit Body, a five-day retreat on January 25–29 is one of the world’s most acclaimed and innovative American dance” (San Francisco Chronicle). with Amara Pagano. End the whole experience ensembles, combining performers with and without www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/performances with an intimate day with the humpback whales on disabilities. AXIS will change the way you think about January 30. dance and the possibilities of the human body www.amarapagano.com forever. The company will be in residency in Florida as New York Dance Parade 2012 a part of danceAble, an event co-presented by Florida May 19 • New York, NY Dance Association and Tigertail Productions, Inc. The Shake, tango, jeté, or leap your way down Broadway Alabama Dance Festival company will perform on Saturday, January 28, as a and be part of history at New York’s sixth annual JAN 20–31 • Birmingham, AL part of danceAble that takes place within the Florida Dance Parade. Last year’s parade showcased over The Alabama Dance Festival showcases the Dance Association WinterFest. 9,000 dancers in 74 forms of dance, sharing the diverse talent and excellence of dance throughout www.axisdance.org/performance.php “stage” with grand marshals Charles Reinhart Alabama, brings the dance community together to (American Dance Festival president), Joseph promote good will and networking, and provides Harrington (star of Billy Elliot), and Kat Wildish David Dorfman Dance Prophets of Funk high quality classes in technique, dance education, (legendary ballet educator). Registration for Dance and choreography. The festival features workshops, JAN 24–29 • Joyce Theater, New York, NY Parade 2012 is now open to both dance groups master classes, dance showcases, and free and individuals. Heralded by the Boston Globe for its “exuberant, community dance classes.This year performances will gorgeous, and delightfully oddball style,” David www.danceparade.org include featured companies Ron K. Brown’s Evidence Dorfman Dance returns to The Joyce with Prophets and Augusto Soledade’s Brazz Dance Theater. of Funk, a work that reinvigorates “boomer memories www.alabamadancecouncil.org to the sounds of Sly and the Family Stone” (Boston FESTIVALS Phoenix). “A celebration of the band’s groundbreaking, visceral and political music, a tribute to the ‘funk’ of 3rd Coast Tribal Dance Festival River Festival everyday people, the piece leaves everyone dancing JAN 21–28 • Costa Rica JAN 5–8 • Fort Worth, TX in their seats, except for those choosing to join the The annual River Festival happens after deep performers on stage,” says the choreographer. The biggest belly dance festival in the central healing work in the Air Transformation Cycle and United States will take place at The Rose Marin kowska cza j kowska photo: marta www.daviddorfmandance.org the profound December Silent Retreat. Participants

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 37 FESTIVALS CONTINUED WE LOVE OUR ADVERTISERS! LET THEM KNOW YOU SAW THEIR AD IN CONSCIOUS DANCER MAGAZINE gather from around the world to celebrate life with music, dancing, medicine, and togetherness under the sun and stars beside the river. The festival features live music, DJ sets, and two deep and 5Rhythms - Bay Area page 34 Living Intentions page 2 powerful all-night-and-day-long medicinal journeys. www.movingcenterschool.com www.shop.livingintentions.com Hammocks, tents, and campfires transform the 5Rhythms - Florida page 43 Lucia Horan page 12 river into its own village for eight days, including www.amberryan.com www.luciahoran.com a vegetarian restaurant, raw dessert bar, and kids camp. There will be opportunities to swim; 5Rhythms - New York page 47 Loretta McDonald page43 participate in yoga, dance, or other movement www.5Rhythms.com lorettaonline.blogspot.com classes; and reaffirm intentions during the evening AlivEmotion page 43 www.alivemotion.com Madrona Mind Body page 47 silent sitting meditations. Bring your camping www.madronamindbody.com gear, hammock, and instruments for spontaneous Antioch University page 3 jamming sessions. www.antiochdmt.org Mass Transit Dance page 46 www.masstransitdance.com www.pachmama.com Bamboo Yoga Play page 40 www.bambooyogaplay.com M.U.C.I.D page 8 www.centerforinternationaldance.org Holland Dance Festival BioDanza USA page 12 www.biodanza.us Nia Technique inside back cover JAN 26–FEB 26 • The Hague, The Netherlands www.nianow.com Holland Dance stages numerous dance activities for a Breema page 47 wide-ranging audience all year round. These activities www.breema.com Nia Sounds page 4 www.nianow.com culminate in the Holland Dance Festival. In addition Center for Kinesthetic Ed. page 45 to a podium for presentation, Holland Dance is www.wellnesscke.net Optimist Clothing page 43 www.boptimist.com also producer, co-producer, and instigator of dance Christopher Campbell page 44 projects. The promotion of dance, with special www.soullifecoaching.com Soma Space page 40 attention for amateurs and education, www.somaspace.us/training is a guiding principle in all of Holland Dance’s Columbia College page 16 www.colum.edu/dmt Primal Spirit Foods page 40 activities. This season’s festival will feature www.primalspiritfoods.com performances by Nederlands Dance Theater 1 and 2, Dance Alive page 45 Streb Extreme Action Company, Ballet Boyz, Beijing www.dancealive.com Queen of Hearts Clothing inside front cover Dance Theater, Sylvie Guillem, and will also host the www.queenofheartsclothing.com Dance on the Wild Side page 43 Holland Dance Gala. www.danceonthewildside.com Rancho La Puerta back cover en.holland-dance.com/page/festival www.rancholapuerta.com Dance Paws page 4 www.dancepaws.com S.F. Herb & Natural Food Co. page 40 Singapore Fringe Festival www.herbspicetea.com Dancing Fire Lizards page 43 FEB 15–26 • Singapore www.dancingfirelizards.com Santa Barbara Graduate Inst. page 4 The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival combines theatre, Dancing Freedom page 8 www.sbgi.edu dance, mixed media, music, and visual arts created www.dancingfreedom.com Sierra Conscious Dance page 43 and presented by Singaporean and international Electronic Awakening page 45 www.earthspiritbodywise.com artists. The festival is set to be a creative center, with a www.electronicawakening.com twin purpose of innovation and discussion, a platform Soul Motion page 10 for meaningful and provocative art to engage our Envision Festival page 3 www.soulmotion.com www.envisionfestival.com increasingly connected and complex world. The The Studio Maui page 3 theme for the 2012 festival is Art and Religion. How EcstaticDance.org page 43 www.thestudiomaui.com we define religion, and how our religions/faiths define www.ecstaticdance.org us, is part of the way we construct our world view. The Surfing the Creativepage 33 Harbin Hot Springs page 6 www.goldenbridge.org festival will seek to explore the symbols, rites, and www.harbin.org rituals we develop based on our beliefs. Tamalpa Institute page 4 www.singaporefringe.com Helene Eriksen page 43 www.tamalpa.org www.helene-eriksen.de TransDance page 17 Interplay page 40 www.templeartsinstitute.com BaliSpirit Festival www.interplay.org MAR 28–APR 1 • Ubud, Bali Village Heartbeat page 43 Ion Ways page 42 www.villageheartbeat.com The BaliSpirit Festival is a vibrant and uplifting perfectwatersolution.com celebration of yoga, dance, and music. The festival Warrior Within Designs page 2 awakens and nourishes each individual’s potential for Jaguar Mary page 8 www.warriorwithinus.com www.sacredcircularities.com positive change within, leading to positive change Waves Studio page 10 in our homes, in our communities, and around the JourneyDance page 10 www.waves-studio.com www.journeydance.com world. The daytime workshops and Dharma Fair take place in a beautiful tropical venue awash in gentle Wild Grace page 40 Kalani Oceanside Retreat Center page 47 www.somaspace.us energy at the Purnati Center for the Arts in Batuan. www.kalani.com The global music concerts in Ubud bring together Yoga Center of Los Gatos page 46 the traditional rhythms of Africa, Indonesia, Australia, Karin Conn PR / Edwardian Ball page 17 www.yogacenterlosgatos.com www.edwardianball.com and more. In its fifth year, the festival brings together Yoga Rocks the Butte page 43 hundreds of celebrated musicians, yogis, and dancers Kevita page 12 www.kevita.com www.yogarocksthebutte.com from every continent as well as students and followers of every calling. Kimberly Miguel Mullen page 44 Michael Zipkin page 16 www.balispiritfestival.com www.kimberlymiguelmullen.com www.lucidmz.blogspot.com

Lis Addison page 6 Zumba page 1 www.lisaddison.com www.zumba.com RETREATS & WORKSHOPS

Canyon Retreat JAN 5–10 • Zion National Park, UT Moving with nature is the core principle of Eastwest Somatics—just as nature allows everything to be itself, to grow, and to change. This winter the Eastwest Somatics Zion Winter Retreat will feature a conference, workshop, and seminar. Topics will include love, power, and service in somatic contexts; healing arts in global contexts; teaching dance and movement somatically; defining somatic practices;

38 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 somatics and social change; working with trauma; use intention, research, and relationship to refine Caribbean Yoga Conference facilitating group work through in-depth movement our ease and accuracy in the art of co-creation. FEB 2–5 • Montego Bay, Jamaica dance therapy; and teaching yoga somatically. Relationship supports expression. The unfolding of The inaugural Caribbean Yoga Conference at the www.eastwestsomatics.com expression is infinite. We explore options to enhance Rose Hall Resort and Spa will bring together people our inter-being. Being where we are, becoming from around the world who are inspired by the Omega Winter Learning Vacations happens. Resting in the discovery of mutual well- practice of yoga, curious about exploring our planet, being is the goal of Contact Improvisation. Come and ready to embrace a growing community of JAN 7–28 • Nosara, Costa Rica practitioners from all walks of life. This conference celebrate your self-awareness and ability to improvise, Come soak in the sun on the beaches of Costa provides practitioners of all ages, experiences, and Rica with an all-inclusive Omega winter learning on and off the dance floor. backgrounds with a balmy, tranquil space to learn vacation at Blue Spirit Retreat in Nosara. Blue Spirit www.breitenbush.com/reservations/info.html from some of the world’s most beloved teachers. Retreat offers an ideal combination of rest and This is a warm celebration of sun, sadhana, sand, relaxation, lifelong learning, and inspired living. and sangha. You will also have the opportunity to Take classes with some of Omega’s top teachers in Tamalpa Experience Workshop venture into the local community through one of a lush natural setting at the Pacific Ocean’s edge. with Daria Halprin our community partner organizations to apply your Certified 5Rhythms® teacher Amber Ryan will teach JAN 28–29 • Kentfield, CA practice with your teacher. www.caribbeanyogaconference.com

Embracing Earth: Wild Wise Women’s Retreat FEB 3–11 • Bamboo YogaPlay and Selva Armonia Dominical, Costa Rica Join Wild & Wise Founder Cheri Shanti and Graceful Warrior Bamboo YogaPlay Founder Sofiah Thom for a week of sharing, sacred play, and learning in nature, filled with juicy heart sharing, creativity, dance, yoga, drumming, as well as Earth Wisdom sharings from guest presenter Sarah Wu of Punta Mona. Wild & Wise Women’s Series are designed to bring women into their most authentic selves. Through time spent with other women in nature, using the expressive arts, wisdom sharing, meditation, and self inquiry as tools for transformation and self discovery, Wild & Wise offers women fun and powerful experiences for life-changing possibilities. www.wildwisemuse.com

Honoring and Healing the Goddess Within FEB 9–12 • Duncan Conference Center, Delray, FL The weekend before Valentine’s Day, celebrate and honor your inner beauty, strength, and love within a sacred circle of sisterhood. Shanti and her support team of Carolina Zacaria and Debra Kelly will create the opportunity for you to find your balance and harmony through group activities, Revel in style at Timbavati on bodywork, ceremony, energy medicine, channeling New Year’s Eve. pg. 37 the divine, and guided meditations. You will release the routines or habits that no longer serve your highest good or support what you hope to manifest in life. This retreat will plant powerful new seeds of self- 5Rhythms® Movement as Meditation for three Learn how to listen deeply and respond creatively to love and assist in creating models of support that will help you ground this nourishing and clarifying time consecutive weeks. Each week-long program is eight the powerful intelligence of your body in this two-day into your daily life. days and seven nights, beginning and ending on intensive workshop facilitated by artist, author, and www.journeysofthespirit.com/trips/florida- a Saturday. You will learn to move from your head expressive arts pioneer Daria Halprin. toward your authentic self, awakening the human This workshop introduces the Tamalpa Life/ goddess-retreat potential that lives within each of us. Art Process®, a unique approach to movement-based www.eomega.org/omega/costa-rica expressive arts. Using movement, drawing, poetic Wild Grace™ Ecstatic Dance writing, and improvisational performance, participants FEB 18–24 • Tecate, Mexico will tap into art’s symbolic language to explore Greeting the New Year: At beautiful Rancho La Puerta, release notions of what Free the Body, Free the Mind current life themes and generate new resources and dance looks like and reclaim your natural, authentic inspiration to take back home. JAN 14–21 • Daku Resort, Savusavu, Fiji movement with WILD GRACE™ creator Paula Byrne. www.tamalpa.org Start 2012 with a week-long yoga retreat with Michelle Through a blend of music and silence, movement Jayne. Michelle’s practice helps students work with and stillness, the everyday dance will be transformed the physical practice of yoga to embrace mental Vividly Woman Sacred Sensual Splendor into a journey of self-discovery. Paula’s inspiring facilitation creates a safe, playful container to deepen change. “Change is not something that we should JAN 28–FEB 4 • FEB 25–MAR 4 • MAR 24–31 body awareness, expand your movement vocabulary, fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. Troncones Beach, Mexico and connect to the pleasure of moving your body For without change, nothing in this world would ever Join Leela Francis, noted experiential healing teacher from the inside out. Since 1996, Paula has been grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever and speaker, in a sacred circle of sisters for a week- leading classes and workshops in ecstatic dance, move forward to become the person they’re meant long reunion and nourishing indulgence of your true authentic movement, blindfolded trance dance, and to be.” Everyone has a path. Yoga is a way to not only Goddess essence. Yoga, sacred dance, soulful ritual, Contact Improvisation. build your physical strength, but also your mental and and circle time deepen our journey into the sacred www.SomaSpace.us emotional strength. sensual beauty that abounds within and around www.paradisecourses.com us. Leela Francis, founder of the Vividly Woman Programs, along with her amazing VW co-facilitators, Rhythm and Flow: A Vinyasa and Kirtan Retreat WOW of Contact Improvisation will create a magical and safe space for diving deep and celebrating abundantly. This is the fifth year FEB 19–24 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA JAN 22–27 • Breitenbush Hot Springs, Detroit, OR that Vividly Woman circles have gathered in this To practice asana is to become one with the eternal Contact Improvisation offers the experience of tropical paradise. New and established members are vibration; to chant is to give it voice. On this retreat, belonging and freedom. When in contact we belong; welcome. This special retreat can be attended on its these two practices will be experienced as one when improvising we are free. This immersion focuses own or can also be applied toward the Vividly Woman unfolding. Join yogi Rolf Gates and kirtan musician on developing awareness in order to study and Embodied Leader certification. Space is limited. Girish for a retreat experience that combines dynamic

photo: C ourtesy of T im b avati expand our capacity for mutual well-being. We will www.leelafrancis.com vinyasa flow classes, expert alignment and meditation

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 39 40 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Axis Dance performs in Miami with dance- Able, part of the Flor- ida Dance Association WinterFest. p. 36

Live and teach your yoga at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. pg. 36

instruction, and inspiring kirtan sessions. The international recognition as a contemporary healer Spring Sound Healing and Yoga Retreat practice of both chanting and yoga offer you the and teacher of progressive psychology and MAR 23–25 • Ojai, CA chance to move out of the conceptual mind into neo-shamanism. His Dynamic Mythology Experience Join sound healers and movement lovers Jamie direct experience. This intensive retreat is about utilizes five contemporary shamanic movement and stepping back from your routine and your habitual dance-based modalities for accessing levels Bechtold and Daniella White for a weekend of ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. This simple act of shamanic trance. Alix says of this workshop, transformation through sound healing and movement. of pausing creates peace, and the opportunity to “My intention is to bring into focus the enormously The retreat takes place the first weekend of spring at intentionally move into the next moment of your life. complex worlds of mysticism, psychology, shamanic beautiful Calliote Canyon in Ojai. The weekend will www.esalen.org spirituality, and science for the purpose of clear include daily yoga classes, sound baths with Paiste direction and achievement.” With Alix, you gongs and crystal singing bowls, vocal will explore various body-centered, altered toning, meditation, hooping and/or ecstatic dance, The Yoga of Chant Retreat states first hand, resulting in the embodiment of local organic vegetarian cuisine, and more. FEB 24–26 • Nassau, Bahamas wisdom and the discovery of alternative solutions www.dancingspiral.com Nourish your heart, inspire your mind, and uplift your to difficult situations. spirit with chanting virtuoso Krishna Das. One of www.trancedance.com/dynamicshamanism.do the foremost devotional singers in the world, he is a Body Tales Spring Retreat disciple of Neem Karoli Baba and has sung with other MAR 23–25 • Santa Cruz, CA 5Rhythms®: Form, Fluidity, yogis in the United States and India, including Ram Freedom with Lucia Horan Body Tales® is a creative and healing practice Das. Sharing his heart through music and chanting that integrates voice, movement, and personal is the basis of Krishna Das’ spiritual work. In his MAR 18–23 • Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA storytelling. This unique form combines elements of concerts and workshops, he uses the joy and power of The 5Rhythms® is a moving meditation practice, theater, dance, and expressive arts. It encourages chanting to lead his audiences beautifully an improvisational form of dance. It is a map of and supports an embodied value system in which the an energetic wave that we see in the patterns, into the inner heart space. During this retreat there well-being of the Earth is central. During this spring rhythms, and cycles of life. How can the rhythms will be evening kirtan concerts, afternoon workshops retreat in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains you help us navigate the landscape of this life? How with chanting, the yoga of devotion, musical will work with Olivia Corson and Lysa Castro. Tend accompaniment, and teachings on Bhakti yoga. can we foster fluidity through the embodiment of this practice? We will practice the embodiment of and attend body, earth, and inner world. Experience www.krishnadas.com transition and change as we move from rhythm to intuitive movement, sounding, story-gathering, depth rhythm. In this place, we fulfill our potential to both witnessing, creativity, healing, artistry, beauty and Mexico Dance Retreat give and receive all that is available to us in this life. sanctuary in nature, rest, camaraderie, hot tub, cold This workshop is designed for anybody, of any age plunge, star-gazing, redwoods, meadow-dancing, FEB 24–MAR 3 • Monasterio Benedictino, or size. Learn skills that you can apply to your daily stillness, support, grieving, celebrating, dreaming, Ahuatepec, Morelos, Mexico life as well as on any dance floor. re-humanizing, renewal. The 16th annual Circle Dance and Paneurhythmy www.luciahoran.com www.bodytales.com retreat will be an international gathering of Circle Dance, healing arts, and music. Circle Dance is both ™ an ancient and modern way of creating harmony, Soul Motion 2012 Sacred Circularities nurturing our bodies, freeing our minds, and with Vinn Martí – “Freedom to Soar” Hoop Dance Retreat in Bali generating love and connection within ourselves, MAR 22–26 • Bali, Indonesia APR 3–10 and APR 10–17 • Ubud, Bali our community, and with the divine. The full program The practice of Soul Motion™ is grounded in In its third year, Sacred Circularities will host a Spiritual includes a variety of dance facilitators, special principles of perception, and courting a presence events and workshops, excursions to sacred sites Hoop Dance retreat in beautiful Bali for all levels of that encourages accurate responses to the everyday hoopers. The first transformational week will feature and pyramids, excellent food, the beauty of the dance. This presence invites a deep dive into a place Christabel Zamor, Jocelyn Gordon, and Shakti Sunfire monastery, and the chance to explore the historic of creativity, where students access wisdom of the with additional workshops on theta healing, tantric village of Tepoztlan. body through their direct movement experience. hooping, and tantric yoga practices. The second www.danzacircular.com Award-winning performer, choreographer, and designer of Soul Motion™, Vinn Martí served as week’s co-facilitators will be Bunny Hoop Star, Ann co-director of Portland, Oregon’s, innovative Humphreys, and Anah Reichenbach with additional Dynamic Mythology Experience movement arts studio, Body Moves, for 18 years. He workshops in crystal bowl sound meditation and MAR 16–18 • New Orleans, LA now leads seminars and workshops internationally shamanic dreaming. Both weeks Rainbow Michael Shamanic cultures experience the entire body teaching Soul Motion™, a movement ministry of will share his hoop/poi fusion emphasizing Sacred as a thinking organism rather than limiting intelligence dance for experiencing movement as meditation. Geometry in motion.

ripalu C enter photo: C ourtesy of K ripalu to the physical brain. Wilbert Alix has earned www.soulmotion.com www.sacredcircularities.com

conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 41 reviews REVIEWS books Sleight by Kirsten Kaschock

Kirsten Kaschock unfolds her first novel like a mystery, revealing in scattered glimpses her characters, their relationships and histories, and the intricacies of Sleight, the dreamed-up performance art that initially inspired her book. This extensive character development and back story drives the plot, while dialogue, journal entries, and non-narrative word improvisations help her meandering tale develop subtly. The book follows two sets of siblings through the development of a new Sleight performance. Despite a long estrangement, sisters Lark and Clef share an uncanny physical bond; together they grapple with struggles old and new, balancing their personal needs with commitment to other, realizing their artistic power even as they begin to collapse the structures of their lives. Brothers Byrne and Marvel, on the other hand, have little to do with one another until a visionary Sleight director lures them into his provocative new production. Still reeling from a family trauma, the talented brothers bear their wounds visibly: Marvel numbs himself with drugs; Byrne pays penance via a self-induced handicap. Each sibling has what the other lacks — Clef’s fire to Lark’s darkness, Marvel’s color to Byrne’s words. Every family in this book bears children who can’t be complete without their kin. As her plot begins to cohere, Kaschock weaves this motif into a tale about an art form that also requires the contributions of many in order to be whole. In doing so, she raises questions of what it means to dedicate oneself to an art form. When a performer masters her form and melts wholly into her work, where does she go? How much can one sacrifice for an art form? Do artists reserve the right to create work based on human suffering? Is this their responsibility? Kaschock brings a magical realism to the page as her tale offers a slight (or should I say “sleight”?) tweak on reality. The world she creates is not quite otherworldly, but somehow retains a feeling of fantasy, making readers look twice to be sure it’s really the same quotidian society in which we live. However, characters with quirks like blue fingers and physical telepathy/empathy slowly morph from preternatural to mundane through the course of the novel, while footnotes lend the text an official tone, suggesting an alternate version of history that’s been covered up all these years. In fact, it’s tempting to google some of the “historical” facts presented in Sleight, just to make sure you didn’t miss something in that American history class years ago. The book leaves the reader slightly befuddled but nevertheless pleased, like waking up from a dream that just might have been real. E.S. www.coffeehousepress.org

Uncertainty: Turning Fear Spark: The Revolutionary and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance New Science of Exercise and the Brain by Jonathan Fields by John J. Ratey M.D.

This book explores and This book makes a great point clarifies a paradox that very convincingly. Evidence faces all of us, whether we from every angle shows that call ourselves creative types higher fitness levels directly or not. We tend to work relate to positive mood, lower to eliminate uncertainty as levels of anxiety and stress, much as possible, but by and overall brain health. Re- eliminating it we limit nov- search from kinesiologists to elty as well, which is the epidemiologists shows that starting point for creation the better your fitness level, and innovation. To lean the better your brain works. into uncertainty is to face Author Dr. John Ratey, a clinical professor of psychia- fear and doubt, and Fields, try at Harvard Medical School, sees a positive trend serial entrepreneur, blogger, and author of Career in medicine and education as people officially take Renegade, shows us in this well-written manual for exercise seriously. The reason we feel so good when creatives how to become fear alchemists and trans- we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain mute common roadblocks into creative fire.F ull of function at its best. Ratey makes the point that the inspiring anecdotes and practical tips and practices, sedentary character of modern life is one of the big- this book is valuable to anyone nurturing a creative gest threats to our continued survival. Modern neu- spark. Mindfulness techniques, meditation, dance, roscience is bearing out what many of us have known and fitness bolster Fields’ argument that if you want intuitively all along. Studies of dancers, for example, to become a great creator you must take action. This show that moving to an irregular rhythm improves is the story of how he embraced the unknown and brain plasticity. Exercise benefits the brain to support turned his own creative process into more of a dance learning and to lessen the effects of stress, anxiety, than a race — he gave up a promising six-figure ca- depression, addiction, ADD, hormonal changes, and reer as a corporate lawyer to make $12 an hour as a aging. Ratey also offers a regimen of practical knowl- personal trainer, then as the father of a three-month- edge to help build your brain. This engaging book old baby signed the papers to run a yoga center inspires with juicy anecdotes and hard science, of- in New York City on the day before 9/11, landing fering a logical argument for getting off the couch. on his feet. His tale is inspiring, his tools are prac- One to read and pass along that makes the sci- tical, and his book will put you back in the game. ence behind the mind-body connection enjoyable. M.M. www.jonathanfields.com M.M. www.johnratey.typepad.com

42 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Give the gift of optimism

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conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 43 reviews REVIEWS DVDs Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca This documentary offers an even-handed and revealing look at ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic plant medicine used in shamanistic healing. Director Richard Meech intersperses scientific clips from ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna, PhD, and Gabor Maté, noted addiction expert, with the story of three seekers on a trip to Peru. There they will encounter the Stone Age psychotropic brew for the first time in a series of three ceremonies over the course of a week. Guillermo, the shaman and host of the garden retreat, says that it’s a cleansing process that works on three levels: physical, psychological, and spiritual. “It will teach you what you need to know.” Rob is an accountant at a media company, Kirsten is a professional in the medical field, and Colin is a young father set on strengthening his relationship with his wife. Rob’s is a spiritual quest, Kirsten seeks to validate her role as a healer, and Colin is simply seeking therapy. McKenna contrasts the experience with faith-based religions: “You don’t have to have faith, it’s the perfect tool for skeptics. Don’t believe me, don’t believe what anyone tells you, take it, have the experience, evaluate it for yourself, make of it what you will.” Rob, Colin and Kirsten each learn far more than they expected from the plant teacher, and the filmmakers visit their homes months later to see how the lessons have been integrated into their lives. Kirsten describes it as “the most humbling experience of my life,” adding, “I was left with an insane level of gratitude for a kind of love I’d never felt in my life.” Rob states, “It gives you a second chance at being yourself.” Colin says, “It’s helped me be much more accepting in my relationship.” Maté concurs from the therapeutic point of view: “The essence of addiction is trying to complete yourself from the outside. Ayahuasca is about going within.” The origin of ayahuasca is one of the great mysteries, and when asked the shaman says that the plants told them which two to brew. The shaman also says it is time to spread the teachings of ayahuasca beyond the jungle, which McKenna views as a bio-intelligent survival mechanism. The extra scenes in this film explore the pharmacology and neuroscience of ayahuasca as well as how the human species co-evolved with plants. Kenneth Tupper, author of The Globalization of Ayahuasca sees it as a valuable adjunct to traditional Western approaches in treatment of depression, addiction, and anxiety. Overall, this DVD provides a thoughtful and well-nuanced glimpse at a powerful substance, whose message is simply that the great mystery is beyond our grasp. M.M. www.vineofthesoul.com MIXER MIX MASTERS SPOTLIGHT DJ ALIA Top Ten artist / track title

1. OTT Smoked Glass and Chrome

2. Akara The Emperor and the Oracle

3. vinja Droppleganger

4. MIMOSA Drippin

5. GOVINDA Universal on Switch

6. Ekova Temoine (Farmakit Affectionately dubbed “the goddess of grooves extended remix) and rhythms,” Alia (formerly Bombgoddess) has rapidly become a fixture of the Bay Area conscious 7. florence and the machine movement and Burning Man scenes. Weaving an Cosmic Love (Short Club Remix) intoxicating blend of globally infused electro-tribal grooves, melodic glitch hop, inspired dubstep, and 8. phutureprimitive cosmic downtempo, she evokes the sacred while awakening a connection to our human experience High Rez through rhythm and movement. She has shared the 9. Mr. projectile stage with the likes of Freq Nasty, Beats Antique, Marty Party, An-ten-nae, Random Rab, Heyoka, and Love Here (Bassnectar Remix) Bay Area favorite DJ Dragonfly. Trained as a dancer, Alia can take a room into deep ecstasy with her bright 10. halou energy and serpentine movements.

I’ll Carry You www.aliarhythms.com photo: b haskar aner j i

44 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 45 results RESULTS

I’m a 64-year-old Chinese-American woman who was properly brought up to be polite and respectful, and not be seen or heard. Cynthia Winton-Henry’s book about Interplay, What the Body Wants, told me that I have a voice and that I matter. After much hesitation I decided to go to Interplayce in Oakland, California, and see what Interplay was all about. I picked Improvising a the voice meditation class because I thought it would help me with path to freedom my singing. I was worried that I wouldn’t fit in and would do things with InterPlay’s wrong, but other students were very friendly and I felt comfortable in friendly forms this new environment. and philosophy. Fun and easy to do, Interplay is based on a series of incremental “forms” that offer partici- pants the chance to play with movement, stories, and voice. In class we flung imaginary paint balls at the wall and floor, made loud and soft noises to our hearts’ content, and moved fast, slow, or stood still. There was no right or wrong way to move. We just let our bodies move and did what felt good and right at that time. When our accompanist Mark improvised music on the keyboard, we danced or not and things came up for me. To my surprise, I started crying. I hadn’t realized that I had stored so much pain in my body. All my old hurts and baggage came up and no one told me to stop or asked if We just let I needed help. They were there to witness my struggles and allow me the freedom to ask for a hug or not. our bodies Six weeks after joining InterPlay I was given the option of going with Cynthia on a two-week trip to India. I debated internally move and about whether to ask my husband or therapist for advice. In the end I did what made the decision to go on my own. Interplay has fostered my inner authority by teaching me to listen to what my body wants and needs in felt good the moment and letting that govern. In the warm-ups the leader says, “Listen to your body; if it hurts don’t do it, modify it, there’s no right and right at or wrong way.” This is different than everything else in life. that time. In India I saw extremes of poverty and unfamiliar ways of living. I learned to wash out of a bucket of cold water when hot water was unavailable and to dance with village people and visit their homes. People were very friendly and I enjoyed vibrant city streets, music, and dance. After we came home, I continued going to InterPlay and en- rolled in a series of intensive, two-day Life Practice sessions. Be- ing involved in InterPlay has made me more able to do things that are fun for me and to stop activities that no longer fit the new me. I’ve started to clean out the clutter and hoarding that I learned from my Depression Era parents and surround myself with beautiful things that I enjoy. Pamela Coville Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry founded InterPlay Retired UC Berkeley entomologist. 22 years ago in Berkeley, California, and today it is practiced in 60 cit- Oakland, CA ies on six continents. It’s a fun practice in which people are accepted Activities: Singing, as they are. Together we learn to lead or follow or blend our abilities watercolor painting, and to find healing through movement. gardening, and

knitting. For more information, visit www.interplay.org. photo: courtesey of interplay

46 conscious dancer | WINTER 2011 Amongst the most beautiful studios on the planet. – Isabelle Du Soleil Magical... an amazing and energizing place. – Baron Baptiste

Breathe the cleanest air in the world. Immerse yourself in the transformative aloha spirit of the Big Island of Hawaii. Our jungle and ocean view studios provide a magical space for yoga and dance instructors to inspire.

Visit for a personal retreat, or join those who have already discovered the joy of holding a workshop in the midst of invigorating paradise.

Reservations & Group Info: (800) 800 6886 | www.kalani.com closing circle

The Gods have meant That I should dance And in some mystic hour I shall move to unheard rhythms Of the cosmic orchestra of heaven And you will know the language Of my wordless poems And will come to me For that is why I dance.

— Ruth St. Denis

Photo-illustrations seen in this issue (here and in the “Being Danced” feature) are the work of Moldavian photographer Igor Zenin. www.zeninphoto.com

71 years ago yoga’s presence in North America was still in its infancy, and we didn’t call our fitness resort “organic” or “sustainable.” To us, it was all simply a way of life!

Clockwise from upper left: founder Edmond Szekely, early organic farm at the Ranch, yoga teacher Indra Devi at the Golden Door, and 1940s Ranch tent cabin Today at the Ranch, yoga and dance continue to be central to our fitness program, and it marries extraordinarily well with our respect for nature, organic foods, and mind, body and spirit health. After our opening in 1940, founders Deborah and Edmond Szekely met the West’s yoga pioneer Indra Devi and welcomed her to both our valley in Baja California, as well as our sister spa, the Golden Door, which Deborah started in the late ‘50s in northern San Diego. Eventually Indra Devi bought ranch land from the Szekely’s next to theirs in Baja and welcomed yoga devotees. We were a ”yoga central” valley! Our innovation continues…each year we hold our annual “ashram week” in August and welcome masters such as Swami Veda of Rishikesh, India. And every week our own masterful yoga teachers and guest yoga masters make your week at the Ranch the best yoga vacation possible. Experience the Original. Experience the fabled “Ranch” where your own door opens to the longer, healthier life.

877-440-7778 | w w w . rancholapuerta . c o m

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