The Dances are a spiritual practice, a way of polishing the heart and deepening one’s attunement, compassion and Presence. While guided by a “leader”, the experience is co-created by everyone in the circle, in concert with the leader and musicians.
Originally, “Dance leader trainings” included leaders, musicians and a circle of Dancers, deepening everyone’s attunement together. Sky has revitalized this in a series of morning conversations at retreats, and has broadened it beyond a discussion of the form of the Dances themselves to also include a heightened awareness of the energy and vibration the Dances create.
These conversations can range widely over a variety of topics, often starting with a question or idea for the group to consider and speak to. These snippets can’t capture the richness and depth of the conversations, but they can give a taste of it.
An individual Dance, a session, a camp or retreat are fractal versions of the same energetic and spiritual journey, each having movement and flow, at different levels of magnitude. In a session, each Dance is a chapter of that journey. Notice which Dance the leader chooses at any particular point in a session; notice how the voices, presence, energy direction (inward, outward) change, deepening and strengthening. Changes in tempo, volume, high/low voices singing, going “on the breath”, etc. contribute to the movement within each Dance and thus to the whole journey. Calling out high/low voices is like separating white light through a prism and is also witnessing others’ prayer; going on the breath is a way to internalize the energy: “I never have the circle go on the breath after high or low voices have just sung – only half the vibration in the space goes into the silence with us.”
We have both a personal self and the ability to dissolve into the All-That-Is and release a sense of individual self. The Dances offer opportunities for expanding both perspectives. Progressive partner dances, especially, offer our personal selves a chance to meet “the other” and to see the same divinity we feel looking back at us through our partner’s eyes. Circle dances with simple rowing movements allow us to merge into the universal energetic space that the singing and repetitive movements create, transcending our need to be individuals and to become, rather than drops in the ocean, the energy and consciousness of the ocean itself.
Words are symbols (even symbols are symbols); they point to an experience or a reality, but they are not the actual experience; in fact they remove us from that immediacy. What is the experiential energy of a Dance, without interpreting the mantra (if in Sanskrit) or dwelling on the definitions of the words (if in English)? Where/how do you feel the experience in your body, without words?
The Dances are a practice in mindfulness in the moment. Our culture teaches us to coast through life without much awareness. A Dance offers more to us, but we sometimes fall back asleep and just coast, being distracted, not paying attention, listening to our internal voices, etc. The silence at the end of a Dance helps build our capacity to hold awareness, energy and emotions, to build our energetic “container.” How does building that container help us hold energies/emotions in our daily lives, when something feels overwhelming, or when we want to space out and coast?
What are the Dances to you? Not the explanation from the website, not an intellectual essay, but in your heart and soul.
What is a dance session about, what does it offer or create?
What do you, specifically as a leader, contribute that helps create this?
What’s your edge in leading? Eg, with or without an instrument? From the circle? Without talking to introduce it?
Are you the same person when leading as when not leading? Is dance leading somehow special and separate from the rest of your life?
The silence at the end of the Dance is when the dance is born. It is an experiential energy. What happens when the leader talks a lot at this point?
What’s the difference between a “leader” and a “guide”?
The Dances can dissolve us into the energy of the group rather than keeping us separate as individuals, becoming the ocean rather than separate drops of water. Opportunities for individual expression abound in the world, focusing us on our ego awareness. The group focus reaches deep within us, beyond the ego, to access a place we often can’t reach on our own. If the Dances become a place to “feel good”, how does it affect that deepening? Can that approach be another doorway into the depths.
MUSICIANSHIP. The role of musician for the Dances is challenging: it asks you to stay centered in your own playing while offering it as a service to the Dance. This means focusing on playing your instrument and at the same time following the energy of the Dance: holding your “groove” while merging into the whole; knowing when to guide and when to follow, when to play and when not to play; always being attuned to the leader, the voices, the movement, the other musicians and the flow of the energy; feeling the energy in the center of the circle but not being overwhelmed by it. It’s a multi-faceted, whole brain role, and yet doing it well means feeling it rather than analyzing it, because as soon as you start thinking you’re removed from the immediacy of the flow.
(More info on musicianship and resources for musicians can be found here: https://dancesofuniversalpeacena.org/dupna-leaders-and-musicians.htm )
ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT. Rock art around the world gives evidence of a time when “reality” was less rigid, when the walls between the worlds were thinner, truly veils instead of barriers. Ancient Australian dreamtime artwork, European cave paintings, the Barrier Canyon style or Basketmaker petroglyphs and pictographs of the Southwest US – they all have a fluidity and (to us) fantasy-like quality to them. What if that reality, that perception of different realms and vibrational frequencies, is more ‘real” than our limited perception? What if “Life is but a dream” is a statement of fact? Perhaps the Dances – the movement, the singing. the chants, the energy generated by the circle – are a way to reconnect with that broader spectrum of reality that we have mostly lost touch with.
~ John Trudell