“Whatever theoretical model may be adopted, do not believe it is the whole. The whole can only be the person, the one teaching and the one moving in an atmosphere of mutual trust.” - Mary Starks Whitehouse
I tried ecstatic dance on Sunday for the first time.
My small city is funny in its eclecticism. On the one hand, it’s a conservative government town on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, surrounded by water on three sides. Citizens here have a regular dress code of fuzzy fleeces and yoga pants (at least for women) to offset the ocean cold. To say it’s casual is an understatement. I often stick out with my black wool wrap cape I bought in the nineties in Toronto, where business dress is the norm.
On the other hand, there are pockets of subcultures in which you can find just about anything – ocean swimmers in January, the university crowd, and dance of various styles, including Dance Temple, where I found myself on a Sunday morning recently.
I’d heard about Dance Temple three years ago, pre-pandemic, from a man who I’d been seeing while still in a post-assault haze. I really had no business dating, but I thought I was “fine” as all I had to do was “move on,” date a “nice guy” and overall, “get over it.” Ridiculous to think about it now. I was not ready to date. I felt a certain “split” in how I presented myself: on the one hand, as an educated graduate student with a full and interesting life, juggling parenthood, internships, and full-time school; and on the other, as someone focused like a demon on finishing my degree no matter what it took, while I was seriously hurting with full-on PTSD. That man tried hard to date me while showing he also respected me as he insisted on reading my (rather long) master’s project thesis (he remains one of the few who actually read it). When he told me about this dance event, I was intrigued, but I never made it there due to my ending things with him after some iffy behavior. And then I forgot about it.
Dance Temple
But a couple of weeks ago a new friend suggested it and there I was this past Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and ready-to-go. The funny thing was the hall is the same one I do ballroom and swing dance on some Friday nights. Even so, the “vibe” was completely different on this morning. New-agey music played, a range of ages from 20-60s moved about in the darkened room with fairy lights strung in strands along the ceiling with a Buddha image hanging in the center of the stage.
A Christmas tree with white lights stood in the right corner, a bright beacon for this dance whose theme was a celebration of winter solstice. I spotted my friend, greeted her, and settled onto the floor. I looked around at the people near me, and started to move, as they were already engaged in their own movement practice.
At first, I did yoga, some sun salutations and downward dogs to open myself up. But that soon felt too “organized” and “rehearsed.” So I abandoned the poses and focused inward. Soon, I heard the facilitator speak from somewhere in the dimly-lit room, welcoming us. She turned up the volume on the deep rhythmic music that played, then offered an intention: “Feel your feet and awaken into your body. As you do, focus on your heart. Now, ask yourself, what is your longing today?”
Then, the music blared and stomping ensued. People moved about, some staying in place and others circling randomly throughout the room. There were probably about 200 by this point. It was crowded. At times, it was hard to move completely free due to erratic movements coming from the bodies swirling around me.
In the center of motion
I closed my eyes and focused inward: What is my longing?
I moved my body, allowing the music to guide me, and invited the question to circle within me. The clouds in my mind began to part. Even as I didn’t force any thoughts, I remained in the moment, in my body as I moved in ways that felt good to me. Insights began to crystallize that were striking in their clarity.
One thought that emerged was about rules, the rules I still lived with, rules that were not mine, but seemed to bubble up from a long-past place. They were the rules of my mother: about who I was, what I was allowed to do with my body, who I was allowed to be with, how I was supposed to be. The memory of the extreme religious phase she forced on me in my teens came and went, reminding me of the rigidity I’d lived with while trying to please a never-pleased mother.
I was surprised at that. I thought I’d processed these memories of long ago. They flitted in and out, showing me work I still had to do.
As the rules showed themselves to me while I moved my body, I asked myself, How do I want to live?
As I watched the ecstatic expressions of those around me, I felt a freedom to be as I am, not an image of how I’m supposed to be. Refusing to remain in a box of expectations, I felt myself question the rules that still remained. I no longer wanted to live from a set of rules from before, not from others, whether my mother or another. I asked myself, what are my rules?
I asked myself, “How do I want to live?”
See, when I dated the man who hurt me, I had no rules. I was so excited to finally have time to date as my degree was coming to an end that I just went along for the ride, enjoying myself as I had not done before. I didn’t want rules. I wanted to live and I embraced the opportunities in front of me. There were many things I did not know as someone who did not date much in my 20s, who essentially went from dating my boyfriend of 7 years from the age of 17 to dating the man who would become my husband for the next almost 19 years. I did not understand dating. Not at all.
After the traumatic event, as I was reeling from what happened, I read all I could about dating and red flags and the “rules” of dating because there was no way I was ever going to put myself in such a position again. But I’ve noticed an emergence of a new order of rules, some old ones from my mother and some new ones from countless “experts” online.
As I moved my body on Sunday, I realized I didn’t want any more rules in my life. Yes, to standards of behavior I will accept, yes, to codes of conduct in how I want to interact.
But no more rules.
And as the concept of the rules passed through me, another idea emerged from the deep throb of the music soaring through my body in an ecstasy of dance among these strangers – dance movement therapy.
Dance movement therapy
In the early 20th century, a woman named Marian Chace used dance to help psychiatric patients who had lost their ability to speak1. She used movement as a way to compassionately connect with these deeply troubled people so they could be drawn out of their profound isolation. She helped them find their voice after trauma (although it wasn’t called that then).
Other research shows how dance and movement promotes “agency and community.”2
During my graduate program, I chose to study dance and movement therapy for a group counseling project and led a class in movement and dance. For my final major project in the course, I created a group program that incorporated dance/movement and writing. My professor wrote in the comments that he hoped I’d get to run it someday.
In that hall, dancing with many others, I felt dance and movement still calling to me. I love dance. And movement has helped me heal. It makes sense, since trauma is stored in the body. Movement and body work has been a core element of my own personal healing these past few years, whether through yoga, massage therapy, or dance (partnered and solo).
Life’s tests…
Can I really start yet another new endeavor? I have a growing therapy practice, I have two children to raise, I write here and am working on a memoir.
But then Life keeps saying, What calls to you? What has helped you heal? How can you share what you’ve learned?
Moving our bodies can take many forms. Not everyone wants to dance (although it is part of our innate nature to enjoy music as we once were infants calmed by the rhythmic heartbeat of our mothers). Movement is healthy and good for us, in whatever way. Some people like to run, or lift weights, or do yoga. Or some like to walk in nature.
As we slide into the winter season, we enter a hibernation phase, the time of winter solstice. We naturally slow our movement in tune with the season. However you choose to celebrate this time of year, no matter your religion or tradition, I invite you to consider how you connect to yourself through your body.
And as you do, I ask you:
What is your longing?
Dance movement therapy: A healing art by F.J. Levy (1988)
The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma by Bessel van der Kolk (2014)