A spiritual journey of music and movement
that evoke a healing energy of love, compassion and transformation.
The Dances of Universal Peace International website describes the Dances this way:
Spiritual practice brings us face to face with Life and Truth, prior to the concepts and beliefs of the person, opening to our true nature – authentic, unguarded, beyond form and imbued with the spaciousness and love that connects all.
The Dances of Universal Peace and Walking Concentrations are spiritual practice in motion. Drawing on the sacred phrases, scripture, and poetry of the many spiritual traditions of the earth, the Dances blend chant, live music and evocative movement into a living experience of unity, peace and integration.
This taste of our true nature – as Universal Peace – opens to the possibility of a deep spiritual revolution within the person.
In 2006, Sky Roshay and Dennis Roshay created a video explaining the Dances in the words of participants at a Dance camp in Canyonlands National Park. Sky had always wanted a video that would explain this deep practice to her mother, and this is the result.
in Salt Lake City UT, 2015. Photo by Mary Ellen Garrett.)
More recently, Bruce Voirin of Austin TX wrote this about the Dances:
“There are many ways we make lasting change. By telling enchanting stories and singing songs about our relations with ourselves, each other, or our ailing but still-beautiful planet and sharing our reflections. By singing others’ songs and then letting the songs ignite creative and thoughtful responses to how things are.
“We do this not with direct political action, but by awakening ours and others inspiration and hope. The advice given by organic farmers: tend the soil, and the plants look after themselves.
“The Dance requires no shouting or preaching. Just a lively imagination, a deep care for life on Earth, and a willingness to Dance and plant stories in the fertile soil between real and ideal.
“The Dances of Universal Peace began in California in the 1960s, a time when love was in the air and flowers were in people’s hair and women wore peasant dresses. It was fertile ground for a practice that was spiritual, pluralistic, loving, and involved music. The Dances, and their objective of creating a more united, peaceful world, are as relevant today as then, and certainly as urgent.
“The dances are danced in a circle (or concentric circles), some in pairs, with musicians playing in the center. The steps are, for the most part, quite simple, straightforward, and are often related to the words sung while dancing — mantras or prayers from many religions and spiritual practices (Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Inuit, indigenous people from many countries…). The practice was founded by Samuel Lewis, often referred to as “Sufi Sam,” a Jewish American who was also a Sufi initiate, a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and a teacher of Kabbalah and Christian mysticism; a man whose life was an embodiment of pluralism.
“I joined the Dances of Universal Peace years ago and relish how interpersonal barriers and political stereotypes dissolve like magic. I cannot pinpoint what gives the dances their unique power to touch people, to break their hearts open. Perhaps it is the intense eye contact; perhaps it is the message of peace and pluralism; perhaps it is the energy of love and unity that the dances have accumulated over the decades, which is passed on to anyone who joins the circle.”
Organizations that support the Dances, Dance leaders and circles worldwide include:
https://dancesofuniversalpeace.org
and
https://www.dancesofuniversalpeacena.org (North America)
There are many Facebook pages for Dance circles and events as well.