Ecstatic dance is a form ofdance in which the dancers, sometimes without the need to follow specific steps, release themselves to therhythm and move freely as the music takes them, leading totrance and what is said to be a feeling of ecstasy. The effects of ecstatic dance begin with that ecstasy, which is described as being experienced in differing degrees. Dancers are described as feeling connected to others, and to their ownemotions. The dance has been described as a form ofmeditation, sometimes used to helpmanage stress and to move towards a state of serenity.
In the ancient and widespread practice ofshamanism, ecstatic dance and rhythmicdrumming are used with the intention of altering consciousness inspiritual practices. Ecstaticsacred dances are known also from religious traditions around the world. Modern ecstatic dance was revived byGabrielle Roth in the 1970s and formalised in her5Rhythms practice; it is now found in variants across the western world.
Attitudes to ecstatic dance have varied widely. In the 1920s,musicologists such as Paul Nettl andFritz Böhme considered it primitive and unrefined. More recently, it has been compared to dancing inraves and inclub culture, the anthropologist Michael J. Winkelman and the musicologist Rupert Till finding in these forms elements of ritual, spirituality, and healing. The philosopher Gediminas Karoblis relates early ecstatic dance toreligious ritual, stating that all well-executed dance borders on ecstasy.
Ecstasy (fromAncient Greek ἔκστασιςékstasis, in turn from ἐκ (ek, out) and ἵστημι (hístēmi, I stand) is a subjective experience of total involvement of the subject, with an object of his or her awareness. In classical Greek literature it meant the removal of the mind or body "from its normal place of function."[1]
The primary effect of ecstatic dance, as for instance insacred dance, is intended to beecstasy.[2] The religious historianMircea Eliade stated that shamans use dance, repetitive music,fasting, andhallucinogenic drugs to induce ecstasy.[3] The ethnologistMaria-Gabriela Wosien identified four degrees of ecstasy that dancers may experience: "the warning, the whisper of inspiration, the prophecy, and finally the gift, the highest grade of inspiration."[2]
The described effects of ecstatic dance include a feeling of connection with others, and with the dancer's own emotions; serving as ameditation, providing a way ofcoping with stress and restoring serenity; and serving as a spiritual practice.[4][5] A psychological study has described it as "generating experiences of flow states, play, creativity, belonging and community".[6] Lisa Fasullo of the Center for Transformative Movement inBoulder, Colorado and colleagues present ecstatic states as "accessible and like traditional meditative states – specifically yoga – as observable, identifiable, discernible, able to be sensed and experienced", and ecstatic dance as "an effective method of attaining these elevated and energized experiences, and ... of generating inner well-being".[7]Roth identified specific emotions associated with the five different rhythms of ecstatic dance that she used, namely that she intended the flowing rhythm to connect the dancer with their ownfear; the staccato rhythm withanger; chaos withsadness; lyrical withjoy; and stillness withcompassion.[8]
Little is known directly of ecstatic dance in ancient times. However,Greek mythology tells several stories of theMaenads; the maenads were intoxicated female worshippers of the Greek god ofwine,Dionysus, known for their "ecstatic revelations and frenzied dancing".[9][10] The mythical female followers of Dionysus, including bacchants and thyiads as well as maenads, were said to have sought the "wild delirium" of possession by the god so they could "get out of themselves", which was called "ekstasis".[11] The male counterparts of the Maenads were theKorybantes (Ancient Greek:Κορύβαντες), armed and crested ecstatic dancers who worshipped thePhrygian goddessCybele with drumming and dancing. They were the offspring of the museThalia and the godApollo. The Greeks often confused them with other ecstatic male confraternities, such as the IdaeanDactyls (Ancient Greek:Δάκτυλοι Ἰδαῖοι) or the CretanKouretes (Κουρῆτες), spirit-youths (kouroi) with magical powers who acted as guardians of the infantZeus.[11]
The myths gave rise to ancient Greek practices in honour of Dionysus. Theoreibasia ("mountain dancing") was a midwinter Dionysian rite practised by women, and said to be originally an "unrestrained, ecstatic dance where the 'human' personality was temporarily replaced by another",[12] though it eventually became structured into a definiteritual.[12]
The theologianW. O. E. Oesterley argued thatOld Testament passages such as 1 Kings 18:26, "They [The prophets ofBaal] limped about the altar they had made", and 1 Kings 18:21, "How long will ye limp upon two legs?" describe a kind of ecstatic dance used forpagan worship in which the knees were bent, one after the other, to give a kind of limping step repeated for each leg. He notes that the dance increased "to an orgiastic frenzy",[10] as by 1 Kings 18:28 the dancers are crying aloud and cutting themselves "with knives and lances". He suggests that this might have been intended to awaken the god's pity and hence answer the people's prayers.[10] Oesterley compares this toApuleius's account in his 2nd centuryThe Golden Ass 8:27–28 of the ecstatic dance of the priests of the Syrian goddess, in which "they began to howl all out of tune and hurl themselves hither and thither as though they were mad. They made a thousand gest[ure]s with their feet and their heads; they would bend down their necks, and spin round so that their hair flew out at a circle; they would bite their own flesh; finally, everyone took his two-edged weapon and wounded his arms in divers[e] places."[10]
Oesterley noted thatHeliodorus of Emesa recorded in his 3rd centuryAethiopica 4:16ff that sailors from Tyre performed a dance worshipping their god Herakles, to the "quick music" of flutes, hopping, jumping up, "limping along on the ground, and then turning with the whole body, spinning around like men possessed."[10]
A variety of religions and other traditions, founded at different times but still practised around the world today, make use of ecstatic dance.
| Tradition | Countries | Description | Start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rudra-Shiva | India | InHindu mythology, theRig Veda tells of theMaruts, the wild but playful companions of the god Rudra-Shiva.[11] The god's human followers may identify with and imitate the god's companions, just as happened in ancient Greece with the followers of Dionysos and the Korybantes.[11] | Ancient |
| Shamanism | Worldwide | Uses drumming, rhythm, and ecstatic dance to alter consciousness in spiritual practices,[14][4][15] hence magical rather than purely ecstatic.[16] | Ancient |
| Anastenaria | N. Greece, S. Bulgaria | In the annual celebrations forSaint Constantine andSaint Helen, dancers perform the Anastenaria, afire-walking ritual, as the climax of three days of processions, music, dancing, and animal sacrifice.[17][18][19] | Ancient or medieval |
| Sufi whirling | Islamic world | In the tradition of theMevlevi Order founded byRumi, ecstatic[20] Sufi whirling is practised by devotees as active meditation within theSama (worship ceremony).[21] In 2007, ecstatic dance was a focus for political resistance in Iran, reportedly "demoniz[ed]" byShi'a clerics.[22] | 12th century |
| Santeria | Latin America | A syncretized form of African dance ofYoruba religion, Fon ofBenin, andCongolese traditions[13] | 16th century |
| Candomblé | Brazil | Afro-American religious tradition practiced mainly in Brazil; makes use of music and ecstatic dance in which worshippers become possessed by their own tutelary deities,Orishas.[23] | Early 19th century |
| Balinese ritual dance | Bali, Indonesia | The anthropologistsGregory Bateson andMargaret Mead filmedTrance and Dance in Bali in the late 1930s, recording the use of trance in Balinese ritual dance, but also influencing what they observed, for example introducing the use of women dancers in thekris-dance in 1937. The dance climaxes with the women dancing ecstatically, stabbing themselves with their razor-sharpkris daggers, and coming to no harm.[24][25][26] | 1930s |
| Modernwitchcraft | Western world | Modern witchcraft traditions such as theReclaiming Tradition and theFeri Tradition define themselves as "ecstatic traditions", and focus on reaching ecstatic states in their rituals, which incorporate dance with other techniques.[27][28] | 1960s |
| Caribbean Shaktism | Indo-Caribbeans | MadrasiTamil immigrants from south India brought with them ritual worship of the goddess Mariamma, based on ecstatic dance to drumming on the tappu.[29] Since the 1970s Kali worship has taken the form of "ecstatic healing ceremonies of spirit possession".[30] | 1970s |
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Early in the 20th century, the Austrian dancerGrete Wiesenthal turned the formalViennese Waltz into an ecstatically danced performance with "swirling, euphoric movement and suspended arches of the body",[31] the dancers "with unbound hair and swinging dresses".[32]
Modern ecstatic dance is a style ofdance improvisation with little or no formal structure or steps to follow or any particular way to dance.[4] Modern ecstatic dance has developed alongside Western interest intantra; the two are sometimes combined, and ecstatic dance often plays a part in tantra workshops.[33][34]
The dancer and musicianGabrielle Roth brought the term "Ecstatic Dance" back into current usage in the 1970s at theEsalen Institute with her dance format called5Rhythms. This consists of five sections, each accompanied by music with a different rhythm, together constituting a "Wave".[35][36] The five rhythms (in order) areFlowing,Staccato,Chaos,Lyrical andStillness.[37] The form strongly expects dancers to shape a distinct movement style consistent with each of the five rhythms, which in practice is unlike other contemporary ecstatic dance as these rhythms often look similar between dancers, but has few other rules. The dance music set is carefully arranged,[36] as documented in Roth's 1989 bookMaps to Ecstasy[37] and a set of three DVDs.[38][39]
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My eyes scan the dancing bodies but keep returning to a young man. He's been gliding along the surface doing his standard repertoire offlowing moves, when suddenly something shifts inside of him. He transcends his boredom and enters the body of a panther onRollerblades. Moves spin out from his center in endless waves, some breathtaking to watch. He disappears in the dance until all that's left of him is a mop of bleached-white hair... He dissolves in a swirl of arms, in the sweep of a leg, in the curve of his neck. ... he surrenders his bones to the waves and dances in the ocean of his being.[39]
Many different formats have developed since the 1970s, often spun off from Roth's5Rhythms.[40][41] After being taught by Roth in 1989, Susannah and Ya'Acov Darling-Khan founded the Moving Centre School in Britain in 1989, teaching the 5 rhythms across Europe. In the early 1990s, "Barefoot Boogie" in San Francisco offered twice weekly drug and alcohol free dance event very similar in form to contemporary ecstatic dance, without the name. In 2006, having met shamans in the Amazon, the Darling-Khans started their own ecstatic dance form,Movement Medicine.[42] The science and environment journalist Christine Ottery, writing forThe Guardian in 2011, suggested that "ecstatic dancing has an image problem"[43] but that it "encompasses everything from large global movements such as 5Rhythms andBiodanza to local drum'n'dance meet-ups".[43] Reviewing her experience of5Rhythms, she suggested that readers may "find 5 Rhythms a good place to start" with ecstatic dance.[43]
Other styles have developed in North America, too, including theEcstatic Dance Community founded in 2000 by Bodhi Tara atKalani Honua inPuna on theBig Island of Hawaii who then passed it on to DJ Max Fathom and influenced by Carol Marashi's 1994Body Choir in Austin, Texas.[44] Sydney 'Samadhi' Strahan foundedEcstatic Dance Evolution inHouston in 2003,[45] while theTribal Dance Community of Julia Ray opened in Toronto in 2006.[46] A more influential event program of ecstatic dance, simply namedEcstatic Dance, was founded in 2008 by Tyler Blank and Donna Carroll and held at Sweet's Ballroom inOakland, California.[44] By 2018, the Ecstatic Dance Community Foundation listed over 80 places that offered "organized, spontaneous dance practices".[47]
ThemusicologistPaul Nettl [de], writing in 1929, granted that ecstatic dance had emotional power "expressive of some psychic exaltation, some intensified emotion",[48] and that the "ordered rhythm"[48] on which it was based was hypnotic, inducing a meditative state and the "dissolution of consciousness",[48] but argued that it was a "primitive" form of dance, a precursor to "higher", more structured dance forms.[48] Nettl added that ecstatic dance was both religious anderotic, giving examples from ancient Greece, medieval Christianity and Sufism.[48] In his 1926Tanzkunst ("Art of Dance"),[49] the dance theoristFritz Böhme similarly asserted, without giving examples, that ecstatic dance lacked "artistic refinement",[50] being limited to "a natural, organically grown expression."[50]
According to philosopher Gediminas Karoblis, in early cultures, ecstatic dance was linked toreligious ritual, releasing the dancer from the egocentric self, undoing self-consciousness and connecting to the absolute. In Karoblis's view, trance dances can be either ecstatic or magical. He considers that the trance of the whirling dervishes is genuinely ecstatic as it glorifies God, whereas shamanistic dance is not, being instead magical, as it is intended to induce effects in the world.[16] Karoblis notes that all dance borders on ecstasy, as the catharsis that it produces, if good, cannot be controlled or "technically calculated", yet dancers depend upon it.[16]
Thepsychoanalyst Mary Jo Spencer used the image of the ecstatic dancer (a Maenad) depicted in theVilla of Mysteries,Pompeii when explaining the appearance of the dance as a symbol for the psyche. She described in thefresco "a nude woman with a flowing scarf turning in a contained but ecstatic dance, much like the description of the dervishes: she does not dance in ecstasy; she is the dance".[51] This was in the context of a client who presented a continuing "motif" of dance, which appeared whenever "a major shift in attitude" was imminent.[51]
The nursing researcher Yaowarat Matchim and colleagues write that whilemindfulness meditation arose inBuddhism, practices that provoke mindfulness are found in wisdom traditions around the world; such practices include ecstatic dance as well asyoga,prayer,music, andart.[52]
Theanthropologist Michael J. Winkelman suggests that shamanism and modernraves share structures including social ritual and the use of dance and music for bonding, for communication of emotions, and for their effects on consciousness and personal healing.[53]
The musicologist Rupert Till places contemporary club dancing toelectronic dance music within the framework of ecstatic dance. He writes that "club culture has elements of religion, spirituality and meaning. Its transgressional nature is partly a reaction to the history of repression of traditions of ecstatic dancing by Christianity, particularly byPuritan andLutheran traditions."[54] He notes that the scholars of music Nicholas Saunders and Simon Reynolds both discuss electronic dance music culture "in terms of trance rituals and ecstatic states."[54]
In their 2003 documentaryDances of Ecstasy, the filmmakers Michelle Mahrer and Nicole Ma portrayed ecstatic dances from around the world, with traditional dances by the San of theKalahari desert of Namibia, and by theYoruba ofNigeria; the modern annual Firedance celebration in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California; by Gabrielle Roth; the whirlingZikr dance of theSufi dervishes; the Hadra ritual danced byMoroccan women, brought by immigrants fromGhana andSenegal; the modernRainbow Serpent Festival in Australia; theCandomblé ritual inBrazil, derived from Yoruba, Fon ofBenin, andCongolese traditions; and the shamanisticKut ritual ofKorea.[13]
Dance has traditionally been a part of Tantric practice, at least for women, with theDevadasis being women who danced in Tantric temples... modern Tantra workshops often have a lot of dance in them. Freestyle dancing, such as ecstatic dance, is also often found in modern-day Tantra, for both men and women.
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