[Adta] Re: Adta Digest, Vol 16, Issue 27

Sun Feb 11 17:04:11 EST 2007

I am happy to see the Dances of Universal Peace message on the listserv.  I just recently attended one in Providence and it is truly a moving and spiritual experience.  (Though I had attended one many years ago, I had forgotten the power of it.)  I am hooked.

Melissa Sabatini
"Moving Matters" 

-----Original Message-----
From: adta-request at adta.org
To: adta at adta.org
Sent: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 8:58 PM
Subject: Adta Digest, Vol 16, Issue 27

Send Adta mailing list submissions to
    adta at adta.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
    http://lists.adta.org/mailman/listinfo/adta
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
    adta-request at adta.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
    adta-owner at adta.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Adta digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. congrats to new ADTR NCCs (skdmt2)
   2. Spiritual Dancing (Lisa Fladager)
   3. Pat will be missed! (Christine Hopkins)

Attached Message
From:skdmt2 at bellsouth.net
To:adta at adta.org
Subject:[Adta] congrats to new ADTR NCCs
Date:Fri, 9 Feb 2007 8:49 PM

I’d like to congratulate all the new ADTR NCCs & also encourage you to let others on the listserve know about your studying experiences. It’s about time for others to be considering this for the Fall & I hope that many of you do.
Thanks & again, congratulations!

Susan Kleinman,MA, ADTR, NCC

Attached Message
From:mysticdancer at whidbey.com
To:adta at adta.org
Subject:[Adta] Spiritual Dancing
Date:

Hi Everyone,

On the topic of DMT and spirituality / healing - I too am happy to see spirituality being addressed here in this forum. After all, we all know the roots of dance, healing and spirituality are deeply intertwined, and that it is only in fairly recent western scientific thought that they were separated. Thankfully, this is now beginning to shift again, as scientific advances are confirming what has been intuitively known all along. (Hooray - Conjunctio!  I see this as the marriage of masculine and feminine, of matter and spirit, of rational and ir-rational.

In any case, because this topic has arisen again, I'd like to highlight the incredibly powerful work being done with the Dances of Universal Peace (DUP), and encourage any DMTs out there to take the opportunity to experience them directly with an accomplished dance teacher / leader. The originator of these dances, Samuel Lewis, studied deeply with dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis, and the focus of their work was "spiritual dance and walk". I have used these dances in mental health settings, and have led them both in modified versions as body prayers in churches and as full-on circle dances involving entire congregations. (We just circle up and dance around the outside of the pews!) Afterwards, many people come up to me and express deep gratitude for bringing dance and movement back into the churches. I've also incorporated the DUP into community festivals and rituals celebrating the cycles of the seasons (as reflected in the Celtic wheel of the year), sometimes with a hundred people. For example, for May Day (the celtic holiday celebrating the union of masculine and feminine), an entire circle of 75 people out on the land will dance to open the directions, then do men's and women's dances, then have a May pole ritual - including ribbon dances, and dances celebrating the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine - and finally dances to support the rite of jumping over the Beltane fire! My DMT and Laban training have certainly informed my dance leading in these varied settings, and my DUP training has greatly enhanced my work as a DMT - an incredible reciprocal relationship! (BTW, if you're interested, I posted previously about this on the listserve in Vol. 15 issue 30, and also included a video clip.  The link again to the DUP website is: http://www.dancesofuniversalpeace.org/  And to the video clip is:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6833697962068556486&hl=en.)

Also, I highly encourage the closely related work of Neil Douglas-Klotz. He is deeply studied in somatic psychology and has been the linguistic scholar responsible for spear-heading the resurrection of the Aramaic language of Jesus (the vernacular language of that place and time, which most scholars believe was the language Jesus actually spoke). Dr. Douglas-Klotz has developed cycles of a danced Lord's Prayer, Beatitudes, Old Testament sacred phrases, and Dances attuning to ancient middle eastern goddesses. All of these dances are meant to be experienced by a group of people dancing together and are sung and danced simultaneously by participants in the traditional language.  He's also developed a plethora of other body practices interweaving ancient middle eastern spirituality with movement and breath practices. He's published widely and his website is: http://www.abwoon.com/ .

The Sufis have a long tradition of movement and dance as being an integral part of prayer and direct experience of the spiritual realm. Probably the most widely known example of this is the whirling dervishes. Interestingly enough, I myself "discovered" whirling, or turning, in authentic movement long before I'd ever heard of whirling dervishes (after all, the movement is there in the collective field, known or "unknown" to us on a conscious level; why not discover it directly in authentic movement?). In session after session of authentic movement, I'd whirl and whirl until I'd fall down, then, in the stillness, I'd feel like I went through a doorway into other realms. Later, in my Sufi studies, I learned that the word dervish meant doorway! Hmmmm...

I am currently experimenting with the interplay of the form of the Dances of Universal Peace and the formlessness of authentic movement. For example, I'll do a particular dance and then let myself be moved spontaneously by the energy that the dance creates. The results have been very rich. I am about to begin a seven week series working with this theme here on Whidbey Island in WA. We also host regularly scheduled DUP retreats here on Whidbey, sponsoring dance teachers from all over the world for entire weekends of dancing. We'll begin a two year training here in 2008 for those who are interested in learning to lead and teach the DUP. (As with any living tradition, the real attunement to these dances is through direct transmission from a teacher, therefore it is important to experience them numerous times with a live person before beginning to share them with others.)

And finally, in a similar genre, you might want to check out the Sacred Dance Guild website. They have a conference coming up in July in Berkeley, CA:  http://www.sacreddanceguild.org/wiki/sacred_dance_guild/?FID=5192525&CFTOKEN=60970797&jsessionid=c2302994861171043867656

To end, a fitting poem from the beloved Sufi poet, Jelaludin Rumi;

Dance, when you're broden open,
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.
        (translation by Coleman Barks)

Hope this is helpful. Happy dancing!

Lisa Fladager, MCAT, LMHC, NCC, DTR, CMA
PO Box 861
Langley, WA 98260
(360) 221-2677 Practice
mysticdancer at whidbey.com 

"This music and dancing is to increase Joy, 
not awe toward another person, 
but Bliss in our own Self.  
This is finding God within, 
through experience."
   ~Samuel L. Lewis, founder, Dances of Universal Peace

Attached Message
From:ch2yes at yahoo.com
To:adta at adta.org
Subject:[Adta] Pat will be missed!
Date:

I, too, will miss Pat, our hearth goddess of the national office.  I remember how intimidated I used to feel around our national leaders.  (Silly of me, I know, but I had more insecurities back then than I do now.)  Whenever I encountered Pat at the registration table at our national conferences, she was so friendly and welcoming, I never felt like a newcomer or less important than anyone else.  When I began serving on the ADTA board of directors a year or so ago, it was reassuring to know that no matter how nervous I felt, I could count on Pat's consistent cheerful warmth.  Her presence helped me feel at home and in community at the board meetings.  Furthermore, I'm going to miss the way we enjoyed making funny, complaining about all sorts of things and laughing together!

Christine H.
_______________________________________________
Adta mailing list
Adta at adta.org
http://lists.adta.org/mailman/listinfo/adta
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.adta.org/pipermail/adta/attachments/20070211/92628aa1/attachment-0001.htm