The first two years I went to Ecstatic Dance, I sat in stillness a lot. Some days, for the whole dance. Other days I would do some yoga, and certain days I would actually do some dancing. But I always had to start with stillness, and some days the stillness would last a long time.
I had recently moved to an active volcano on an island in the middle of the Pacific. The energy can be intense and fiery. There’s also a lot of water element with the ocean, and it’s an ethereal, airy place. But the earth is quite young here, some of it only a few years old with the latest lava flow, and it can be harder to feel that grounding earth element.
I was also in a bad relationship at that time that was hard on my nervous system. Between both of these life circumstances, I was constantly having to work hard to ground.
This conscious movement practice called Ecstatic Dance had only been birthed a couple years before I came to the island, from this volcanic land in the jungle on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Different forms of ecstatic dancing have been around perhaps as long as humans have been around. But this particular dance ritual was created in 2001.
Though I could have stayed home and sat in stillness by myself, every Sunday morning I went to Dance because it wasn’t just the dancing that drew me there. It was the energy of us all knowing we were doing something meaningful; it was the sense of community, the comfort of the ritual, and the intentionality of the music.
I did get up off my mat and dance more and more over those first two years. Eventually I was cultivating enough stillness within that I was able to regularly let the music move me. And while the stillness was so good for me, the dancing started me on a path of deep healing.
Ecstatic Dance can heal trauma.
Somatic therapists will tell you that trauma is held in the body and in the nervous system. At that time in my life my nervous system was in two modes way too much of the time ~ fight and freeze.
When the nervous system is triggered into “fight” mode, the body releases stress chemicals like adrenaline that prime the body to fight for its survival. This creates excess hyped-up energy. If the body utilizes that excess energy, it can metabolize it, as well as the stress chemicals, and the nervous system can come back to homeostasis.
Bouncing, twisting, leaping, and booty shakin’ can really move that energy.
If the body is triggered into “freeze” mode, the muscles can become tense, breathing can become shallow, it can be hard to use your voice, and the body can feel stuck or immobile.
A powerful antidote to the freeze trauma response is movement. Oftentimes the movement needed is subtle. In the Ecstatic Dance musical journey, the BPM and energy levels greatly vary. The fast songs, and those songs with mad bass, helped me move that “fight” energy. And the slow songs melted the rigidity of my being, and allowed my body to become unstuck.
Once I started dancing more, every Sunday morning I was getting high quality dance therapy. All the exertion and movement helped to bring my nervous system back from fight or freeze mode to a place of balance and calm.
Sitting in the opening and closing circles at Dance actually helps to regulate the nervous system as well. Bessel Van der Kolk, a trauma expert who wrote The Body Keeps the Score, talks about how humans co-regulate each other’s nervous systems, and that this is one of the benefits of circling up together.
Ecstatic Dance also helps dancers move through emotions. In addition to trauma that can get stuck in the body, emotions can get stuck as well. Talking about your heartache can be helpful, but dancing your heartache out can really help move that energy.
There are many, many others like me around the world who have experienced deep healing through Ecstatic Dance.
The first portion of Closing Circle is called Shareback. This is when people can share about their experience at the dance that day. At our dance, we often have sharebacks where someone shares that their experience at dance literally changed their life.
In a shareback recently, a dancer talked about how they were able to heal a core wound that day. Another dancer talked about how it helped him have deep insight about his relationship with his father.
Ecstatic Dance can be liberating.
Conscious dancing like Ecstatic Dance can be very different from dancing at nightclubs. No alcohol is allowed at the Dance, so there’s nothing artificial to make you lose your inhibitions.
Sometimes newcomers will stand off to the side, apprehensive at first. They observe and take it all in, obviously enticed but also a little nervous. However, most of them eventually surrender to the beat.
Some sharebacks from first-timers, especially from men, are about how they have never danced sober before, and never so freely. It’s obvious how joyful, intriguing, and exciting it is for them to be connected with their bodies like this, and move it in these fun, new ways.
Moving beyond the blocks of self-consciousness and self-doubt without alcohol in order to dance helps people better move beyond these things in their everyday life.
The safe container of the dance can be healing.
Everyone at the dance wants others to feel very free to move their body in whatever ways the body wants to move, and even new people tend to understand that no one will be judging them for the way they are dancing. Many folks have experienced healing because of this.
Another way Ecstatic Dance can be healing, and is different from dancing at nightclubs, is that women can dance without being worried about getting hit on. This is partly because of the intentions of the dance, and also partly because there’s no talking allowed on the dance floor.
I’ve heard many women share in Closing Circle how liberating it is to be able to twerk or otherwise dance sexy, and revel in the feeling of letting the body express itself in this way, without getting unwanted attention from it or people making it about them. The safety of the container is healing for many women.
The safety is healing for people of all genders. There are many places outside of Ecstatic Dance where men do not feel like they’re allowed to dance, at least not without a beer, or they don’t feel safe shaking their hips or things like that. But do you know how much tension can get stuck in the hips, and how beneficial it can be to loosen those babies up?
Not to mention, it’s not everywhere that two men can dance with each other and not have to worry about ridicule or assault. Did you know that Tango was originally created as a dance for two men to do together? It wasn’t quite so sensual, but it was for men to dance with each other. And in countries like India, some Middle Eastern countries, Arabic cultures, some African cultures, and other places in the world, straight men hold hands with each other.
So many men in US culture, and in many other cultures, are starving for touch. Platonic dancing can help them get some of these needs for human contact fulfilled.
You are invited to see for yourself.
I couldn’t find much research on the healing powers of Ecstatic Dance, though I think we will have research on it at some point. But for the moment, I found this study on conscious dances, and this one done by an undergrad in Ireland. Also, I am not a doctor and of course cannot give medical advice.
But I can share with you what I have seen over and over again.
So much more could be said about the healing benefits of Ecstatic Dance for the emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of humans.
And of course there are plenty of physical benefits, such as stretching, cardio, building muscle, releasing tension, etc. It definitely counts as exercise with all the benefits that accompany a great workout.
Truly, the healing abounds. Someone told me recently Ecstatic Dance saved his life, and that’s actually not the first person I’ve heard say that. We regularly hear so many stories of deep healing.
So, what about experiencing it for yourself? If you haven’t tried it yet, are you curious?
Nowadays there are Ecstatic Dances in most major cities around the world. Use your favorite search engine to find one near you. And if you are ever visiting the Big Island, please come dance with us! You can find more information about our dance here. You can also read about a typical Sunday here.
Please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]. And whenever you are ready, let the music move you.
