Trance Dance Newsletter

Newsletter December 2021

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Content

•	Foreword: Midwinter 2021

•	Retreat: Tantric Trance Dance

•	Music: Mercan Dede - 800

•	Video: Trance Dance

•	Events: Overview

~ foreword ~
by Aernoudt Knecht

Midwinter

The art of moving from victimhood to empowerment lies in the ability to move along with the currents and powers that surround you, especially when these energies transcend you. Surfing the waves, in stead of fighting them, allows you to rise above it all, reach safe and new shores, and... enjoy the ride along the way.

This time of year, in the northern hemisphere, we barely see eight hours of natural light a day. The days keep getting shorter and shorter, and while the sun sets, darkness falls. At the turning point, in the darkest hour (December 21st 2021, 4:58 AM), the sun will start to rise again.

No matter what you believe in, or not, everyone feels this shift through darkness, back into the light. In the darkness of winter we are naturally more inward oriented. This is why we organize our Visionary Darkness Retreat in this season. While we light the stove, and watch the crackling fire, we connect with things that live deep inside of ourselves, but that rarely see the light of day... bringing the subconscious into the light of consciousness.

When darkness sets in, you'd better surrender! If you welcome it, and stop resisting, you can allow yourself to move thróugh it... surfing nature's waves. And like in the stove, burn up everything that was holding you back... until only white ashes remain.

The birds always chirp so beautifully when the sun rises again in the morning... a new ray of sunlight, a new love, a new beginning!

~ NEW event ~

Tantric Trance Dance Retreat
4-day Workshop

This retreat, as announced in the previous newsletter, offers an amazing opportunity for couples to take their partnership, and love life, to the next level. This program offers a bedding from which to discover and explore, and is both for beginners and experienced (tantric) couples.

Usually we don't connect to others through trance dancing. But directly after trance dancing you are very clear, empty, at peace, and deeply connected with your core. Connecting deeply with a partner, requires a deep connection with yourself, first and foremost. Alignment with who you are, on all levels, is the foundation from where you can truly connect with another. This allows you to you connect to your lover from authenticity, from essence, and this opens up that connection for a profound spiritual exchange. If you are open, grounded, and in flow with life, the quality of that exchange will improve profoundly!

Special Mini Retreat for Couples

Coming from their personal exploration as lovers, Aernoudt and Yvette will bring their skills together in a new and unique new program, where Tantra meets Trance Dance!

IMPORTANT: There will be no explicitly sexual exersises, activities or exchanges in the group! Couples will take that to the privacy of their own bedrooms.

In this mini retreat we will work with meditation, sound, movement and breath, to facilitate a deep exchange with your partner or lover. In a series of trance dances you will allow yourself to move, and be moved, into deeper layers vof awareness, and awaken the life force within. This will create a sacred space from where to connect with your partner or lover.

January 20-23, 2022

Lodging and meals: €175 - Program: €320

Sum: €495

Info & registration:
Tantric Trance Dance Retreat

~ music ~

Mercan Dede ~ 800

October 2007 | Doublemoon

This newsletter seems to be about returning to the center, to your core, to the heart, and this reminds me of the poetry of Rumi. Recently we had the pleasure to welcome another Sufi in our circle, a participant from the middle east. I also have a Sufi friend, from Syria, who has inspired me a lot in the past. Sufism (ٱلصُّوفِيَّة‎) is known in the west mainly from the whirling dances of the dervish, who rotate around their heart, in order to lose their sense of ego, and to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God, or Unity. Sufis are also generally known as "the poor", fuqarāʾ, plural of the Arabic faqīr, in Persian darvīsh.

I love music inspired by Sufism, and the regions from where it originated, and it brings a lot of inspiration, and heartful healing. One of the best albums in that spirit is 800 by Turkish artist and composer Mercan Dede, who often brings traditional music and instruments together with modern techniques and sounds. The album 800 was selected as Best World Music Album of 2008 by WOMEX.

Mercan Dede, also known as DJ Arkin Allen, is a Turkish-Canadian composer, DJ, and producer. As a world music artist, he plays a fusion of traditional acoustic Turkish and other oriental styles with electronic sounds. Dede has been nominated by BBC 3 Awards for World Music in the Middle East and North Africa category twice and three times in the Club Global category. Dede has worked in collaboration with many Turkish and international musicians, and has created many beautiful albums, that are worthwhile to revisit in a future music reveiw:

Sufi Dreams (1998)
Journeys of a Dervish (1999)
Seyahatname (2001)
Nar (2002)
Sufi Traveler (2004)
Fusion Monster (2004)
Su (2003)
Sufi Traveler (2004)
Nefes/Breath(2007)
800 (2007)
Dünya/Earth (2013)
Mercan Dede Box Set (2016, 5 CDs)

Album ~ 800 ~ listen to samples:

Spotify ~ Amazon ~ iTunes

~ video ~

T r a n c e D a n c e

It's not easy to capture the essence, the energy, the feeling, the atmosphere, the fragility, the spirit, the power, the magic, of what it's like to move into trance, on video or film. Many have tried, including television crews from the VRT and VTM, but the result has always been kind of empty, flat or stale.

For years I dreamt of a special way to do this, and recently I finally got that chance, by collaborating with Belgian film maker Natalie Leenders, who's material had caught my eye. It was a pleasure to work with Natalie, and create these two amazing video's: