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A trance dance is a powerful experience, that invites you to return home, deep within yourself. In many contemporary forms of dance the emphasis lies on recreational and social aspects, such as watching and being watched. Trance dancing is usually not intended to communicate with the outside world, but takes place within the context of spirituality, personal growth and inner transformation. A contemporary trance dance is a powerful experience that invites you to drop your masks of limited conditioning and separation and come home deep within yourself.
Since 2002 we have been organising trance-dance workshops, retreats and trainings. While dancing with a blindfold, you embark on a journey of inner discovery. The ritual takes place within a safely defined space, and the process will be guided with care and loving attention.
This is one of the most meaningful and powerful experiences that human beings are capable of having, and that all human beings should aim to encounter at least once in their lives! Cleansing the doors of perception, and freeing yourself from the constraints of ordinary perception, and from the shackles of your ego, it allows you to transcend time and space. This brings the capacity to truly behold paradox, where you can hold multiple perspectives in your mind at once, conceive of opposites, and somehow behold them simultaneously.
The experience also brings the sense that what was seen, and what was understood, and what was felt, has some deeper meaning than everyday reality, and that this depth of meaning lasts indefinitely. It also brings the experience that everything is interconnected, a sense of cosmic unity, and of oneness with everything. Often this is accompanied by immense positive feelings of bliss, ecstasy and gratitude, or a sense of connection with the divine.
It’s an experience beyond language, that you can’t quite put it into words, characterized by its fluid quality, dissolving just as quickly as it emerged. But even though it’s a temporary experience, the change is lasting, and you are forever transformed by new perspectives, and by a new visionary understanding, that is deeply felt.
Music, dance and spirituality are tightly interconnected. Moving to rhythmic and melodious sounds is not only pleasant, but music and dance can also have a mind altering effect and contribute to our wellbeing.
A typical trance dance is usually an integral part of a ritual. These kind of rituals are ancient and can be found in cultures all over the world, for instance the Inuit, the Navajo en the Sioux of North America, the Siberian shamans, the Voodoo of Benin and Haïti, the Cuban Santeria, the Saami in Scandinavia, the Huichol in Mexico, the swirling Sufi Dervishes and the Yoruba in West Africa. The Umbanda in Brazil combine Roman Catholicism with religious practices from the Yoruba. They believe that a person becomes possessed with Spirit during a trancedance and can be endowed with the power to heal others. Dancers are also known to go into trance during Irish river dances, Balinese mask dances and Indian temple dances.
Trance dancing is ageless, and to this day the energy finds it’s way, for example through the parties of dancing youth, and through the workshops, retreats and trainings we organise since 2002.
