Connections: Dancing Our Roots, Healing in Our Times
Elissaveta Iordanova, MFA, MA and Nada Khodlova, MA, BC-DMT, LCAT
Abstract:
This seminar engages in the issue of connections through traditional ritual dance forms,
and explores holistic therapy through the movement exemplified in these rituals. Through
embodying the practice, eastern movement modalities and looking for western therapy goals, the
session provides connection to the roots of the healing practices. The seminar not only stresses
the importance of learning other cultures’ dance healing forms but also the importance of
knowing our roots as DMT’s and our roots as a individuals/therapists in a ‘melting pot’ society.
Inherent in the traditional ritual dance forms is the foundation of contemporary dance therapy
principles. It provides a perspective on dance evolvement throughout time and practice and
examines the origins of the processes we are using in dance therapy today.
Description:
Traditional ritual dance is buried in the roots of all our cultures and in the ways of all of
our ancestors. Some have closer ties to these ancient ways of connection and others are still
finding their way. Throughout all ages and cultures, traditional dances were used to honor the
divine, to heal, to affirm connection to the earth and each other, to build community and
celebrate rites of passages and life transitions. The danced patterns illuminate the web of these
connections. It is where personal and universal healing can occur. “Simple repetitive movements
invoke the universality of human experience in space and time. The dance circle invokes the
circle of the cosmos, universality symbol of unity and totality, and serves as a kind of mandala,
which allows each dancer to center herself while bringing the different energies of the individual
dancers into a balanced whole.” (Shannon, p.54)
The dance experience we share invites us to dig, unearth and relish in these roots and
allows them to feed, nourish and ground us in a way that our ancestors knew and some
indigenous peoples and non western cultures still know today. The dances provide a source of
knowing, wisdom, and connection inviting us into them as sacred nonverbal text that reweaves
all the threads of connection providing us with the full colors of the fabric of life. For example
“The Bulgarian ritual dance, as we know it today, is usually a simple formula repeated over and
over again. This repetition takes the performers beyond the reality of everyday life through
movement and mental atonement. It is a special state of being, a sojourn into the sacral world.
That essential knowledge which is not normally realized which cannot be explained, is activated
and experienced during the dance ... the ritual dance is action which has an influence on nature,
on the creation of order in society and on relations between people: it is arrangement,
harmonization, atonement, and communication with the sacral world; it is purification, magic
and initiation.”(Ilieva/Shtarbanova, p. 2-3)
Traditional ritual dance is buried in the roots of Dance/Movement therapy as well. The
12th International Panel at the ADTA’s conference investigated the impact of traditional dance
forms on dance/movement therapy training and practice. DMT elements and concepts are
inherently embedded in the traditional ritual dance experience. It is suggested that making
traditional ritual dance a regular practice in our personal lives and emphasizing its proper place
in DMT study and practice can have profound effects not only in healing ourselves, our
communities, and our current society but is that it is necessary and essential. Leventhal confirms,
“Actually, dance in its therapeutic and healing capacities, is one of the oldest forms of healing
interventions and experiences know to humankind century upon century, in ancient and preindustrial cultures. The powers of ritualistic movement, trance excitation, and community
exultation and release were forms generated and integrated into a culture’s social
organizations:”(p. 9)
Adler goes further and speaks to the sense of being born into a belonging, embodiment of
the collective, a sense of tribe, that our current western society is excruciatingly suffering a lack
of today. “Within the last century, change away from tribal living has accelerated dramatically.
For countless centuries preceding this change, we belonged before we asked “who am I?” We
were born belonging, not only to a tribal body but we belonged to the earth-body. We were held
by a sacred vessel. As the Western world has developed, we have increasingly been urged first
toward the question: “Who am I?” forgetting about the essential relationship between the
individual and the interconnectedness among all beings, encouraged to leave the sacred
circle.” (p.82)
The traditional dance experience connects us to spirit. The body serves as a conduit for
transcendence, the hypnotic repeated body chanting dance steps casting each dancer into a state
beyond themselves.
As Wosien states, “in this way the body, in the whole range of its
experience, is the instrument for the transcendent power; and this power is encountered in the
dance directly instantly and without intermediaries” (p. 9) and further, “in dance ritual-and all
early ritual is dance-man undertook to represent his god, celebrating and commemorating the
god’s measured movements in creation and the traces of his journey on earth.” (Wosien, p.13)
The traditional dance experience connects us to the earth body and the web of life. As we
align ourselves with the universal energy of healing in the dances we are transcending the
limitations of our ‘selves’ and reconnecting with the web. Many of the dances have their roots in
the earliest civilizations in Europe and the near east, back when European indigenous culture, in
common with other indigenous cultures on the planet, embodied a healthy world view which
honored the earth, the body and the feminine.
The traditional dance experience us connects us to each other as we sense shared rhythms
and efforts. To be in synchrony with others in the dances creates an atmosphere of mutual
holding and support. This can provide an essential safe container for the deeper work that the
work induces. The simple repetitive movements in a ‘body chanting’ form evoke the universality
of human experience in space and time. As dancers weaving these ancient patterns into the
present we are unconsciously synchronizing body rhythms and brain waves, creating a healing
container on a cellular level.
The traditional ritual dance experience connects us deeper home into ourselves. The
dances containing some of the oldest dance patterns have symbolic encoded meanings. The
structure of the dance, including the steps, handhold, tempo, formation carries meaning. There
are subtleties of style and technique such as whether the steps are large or small, hard or soft,
quick or slow; where the movement initiates in the body, what chakras are activated, what plane
the dance emphasizes, as well as every other detail of carriage and posture. The possibilities are
endless. All require us to look deep within. Much can be revealed about not only the symbolism
and story of the dance but also what our own preferences are. Examining our own preferences,
patterns, movement preferences/styles, and tension holding patterns can give us a map to our
inner psyche and how we dance in the world. Khodlova writes, that self pleasure is paramount
as the inner earth is reveled in “its roots and soil like a worm shifting, loosening, and aerating
the soil, the vertical shaking is at once a rising of energy and a gathering up and harvesting, as
well as, a release and shedding of what is old and dying and no longer needed. Reawakening,
reliving.... the ancient bodies”
As we attentively dance and plug into the wisdom, healing and transformative nature of
the dances we reweave ourselves into the time honored web of life. “Dance therapy is both a
modern and an ancient art of healing.”( Serlin. p.65). May we all reweave into the cosmos
experience of self and the web of all life through dancing together, holding hands, in synchrony,
in union with all that is and ever was.
References
1. Adler, J. (1996). The Collective Body. American Journal of Dance Therapy #18.( pp.81-94).
2. Capello, P. (2007) Dance as our Source. American Journal of Dance Therapy, #29.(pp.37-50).
3. Ilieva, A. and Shtarbanova, A. (2005) “Zoomorphic Images in Bulgarian Women’s Ritual
Dances in the Context of Old European Symbolism”. The Journal of Archaeomythology. #1.
(pp.2-11).
4. Khodlova, N. (2009) Exile and Homecoming: Women’s Ritual Dance Training.
5. Leventhal, M. (2008) Transformation and Healing Through Dance Therapy: The Challenge
and Imperative of Holding the Vision, American Dance Therapy Journal, #30 (pp.4-23)
6. Shannon, L. (1992) Living Ritual Dance for Women: Journey out of Ancient Times. American
Dance Therapy Association 27th Annual Proceedings (pp. 200-203).
7. Serlin, I. (1993) Root Images of Healing in Dance Therapy. American Journal of Dance
Therapy, #15, (pp.)65-76.
8. Wosien, M. (1974). Sacred dance: Encounter with the gods. NY: Avon Books.