I have just completed an intensive training journey to become an Ecstatic Dance DJ with The Wakamaia School of Sacred Fun.
I had recently done a one-to-one coaching session with Award-Winning Filmmaker and Music Producer Jamie Catto/One Giant Leap. (I can highly recommend all of his workshops as well as his book "Insanely Gifted" by the way.) And yes, great coaches have great coaches too!
In our session, Jamie identified that I need to have more fun which really resonated with me. Within a few days of setting this intention to have more fun in my life and career, I received an email from an old friend and Co-founder of the Bali Spirit Festival, offering me a last minute spot to join this Ecstatic Dance DJ Training and I jumped on it saying %100 YES!
I had experienced Ecstatic Dance as a weekly practise when I lived in Ubud, Bali where we would all gather on Sunday mornings to sweat our prayers, to see and be seen and feel the natural high of bliss. I have made a documentary "The Sound of Healing" where I interviewed therapists, shamans and healers working with sound as medicine. I have also been doing Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms Dance in London whenever I felt stressed out, since I was 20. I was first introduced to the 5 Rhythms Dance by Lynne Franks and her children Josh and Jess Howie (Jess is now a 5 Rhythms Teacher herself).
It is nearly ten years since I first experienced the weekly ritual of Ecstatic Dance in Bali and I am excited now about being able to offer this up myself soon and walking this path which fuses music, movement, meditation, self awareness and healing. Yes, this can all happen on a dance floor when you are sober and awake and set intentions (ie not in a nightclub drinking or high on drugs.)
There are daytime family-friendly dances and there are evening dimly-lit flirty tantric dances, mostly happening at yoga studios but also outdoors and at festivals and at this time on zoom, so there is something for everyone.
I have been trained and initiated as a holder of sacred space for fun and for healing to take people on a deep inner journey and also to jump around in authentic self-expression from ecstatic to grounding, It is quite the ride and always different.
Hope to see you in the near future on a dance floor for high vibration moving meditations, sacred sound journeys and the natural high!
