Ecstatic dance

Ecstasy (from Ancient Greek ἔκστασις ékstasis, in turn from ἐκ (ek, out) and ἵστημι (hístēmi, I stand) is a subjective experience of total involvement of the subject, with an object of his or her awareness. In classical Greek literature it meant the removal of the mind or body "from its normal place of function." The primary effect of ecstatic dance, as for instance in sacred dance, is intended to be ecstasy. The religious historian Mircea Eliade stated that shamans use dance, repetitive music, fasting, and hallucinogenic drugs to induce ecstasy. The ethnologist Maria-Gabriela Wosien identified four degrees of ecstasy that dancers may experience: "the warning, the whisper of inspiration, the prophecy, and finally the gift, the highest grade of inspiration." A psychological study has described it as "generating experiences of flow states, play, creativity, belonging and community". Lisa Fasullo of the Center for Transformative Movement in Boulder, Colorado and colleagues present ecstatic states as "accessible and like traditional meditative states – specifically yoga – as observable, identifiable, discernible, able to be sensed and experienced", and ecstatic dance as "an effective method of attaining these elevated and energized experiences, and ... of generating inner well-being". Roth identified specific emotions associated with the five different rhythms of ecstatic dance that she used, namely that she intended the flowing rhythm to connect the dancer with their own fear; the staccato rhythm with anger; chaos with sadness; lyrical with joy; and stillness with compassion. == Ancient ==

, depicted by Jane Ellen Harrison, 1912 Little is known directly of ecstatic dance in ancient times. However, Greek mythology tells several stories of the Maenads; the maenads were intoxicated female worshippers of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, known for their "ecstatic revelations and frenzied dancing". The mythical female followers of Dionysus, including bacchants and thyiads as well as maenads, were said to have sought the "wild delirium" of possession by the god so they could "get out of themselves", which was called "ekstasis". The myths gave rise to ancient Greek practices in honour of Dionysus. The oreibasia ("mountain dancing") was a midwinter Dionysian rite practised by women, and said to be originally an "unrestrained, ecstatic dance where the 'human' personality was temporarily replaced by another", The theologian W. O. E. Oesterley argued that Old Testament passages such as 1 Kings 18:26, "They [The prophets of Baal] limped about the altar they had made", and 1 Kings 18:21, "How long will ye limp upon two legs?" describe a kind of ecstatic dance used for pagan worship in which the knees were bent, one after the other, to give a kind of limping step repeated for each leg. He notes that the dance increased "to an orgiastic frenzy", as by 1 Kings 18:28 the dancers are crying aloud and cutting themselves "with knives and lances". He suggests that this might have been intended to awaken the god's pity and hence answer the people's prayers. Oesterley compares this to Apuleius's account in his 2nd century The Golden Ass 8:27–28 of the ecstatic dance of the priests of the Syrian goddess, in which "they began to howl all out of tune and hurl themselves hither and thither as though they were mad. They made a thousand gest[ure]s with their feet and their heads; they would bend down their necks, and spin round so that their hair flew out at a circle; they would bite their own flesh; finally, everyone took his two-edged weapon and wounded his arms in divers[e] places." Oesterley noted that Heliodorus of Emesa recorded in his 3rd century Aethiopica 4:16ff that sailors from Tyre performed a dance worshipping their god Herakles, to the "quick music" of flutes, hopping, jumping up, "limping along on the ground, and then turning with the whole body, spinning around like men possessed." == Traditions ==

A variety of religions and other traditions, founded at different times but still practised around the world today, make use of ecstatic dance. , are found in different forms across the world. File:S.E.C.C. shaman dancing HRoe 2008.jpg|Shamanism, America File:Nestinar.bulgari.jpg|Anastenaria, Bulgaria File:Whirling dervishes, Rumi Fest 2007.jpg|Sufis, Turkey File:Santeria Centro Habana.JPG|Santeria, Cuba File:The Ritual Dance of the Shakers.jpg|Shakers, America File:Caetité baianas.jpg|Candomblé, Brazil File:Trance and dance in Bali Bateson Mead still 3.jpg|Kris dance, Bali == Modern ==

's ecstatic Danube waltzes, 1908, photographed by Arnold Genthe Early in the 20th century, the Austrian dancer Grete Wiesenthal turned the formal Viennese Waltz into an ecstatically danced performance with "swirling, euphoric movement and suspended arches of the body", the dancers "with unbound hair and swinging dresses". Modern ecstatic dance is a style of dance improvisation with little or no formal structure or steps to follow or any particular way to dance. Modern ecstatic dance has developed alongside Western interest in tantra; the two are sometimes combined, and ecstatic dance often plays a part in tantra workshops. The dancer and musician Gabrielle Roth brought the term "Ecstatic Dance" back into current usage in the 1970s at the Esalen Institute with her dance format called 5Rhythms. This consists of five sections, each accompanied by music with a different rhythm, together constituting a "Wave". The five rhythms (in order) are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The form strongly expects dancers to shape a distinct movement style consistent with each of the five rhythms, which in practice is unlike other contemporary ecstatic dance as these rhythms often look similar between dancers, but has few other rules. , Yuan dynasty, 14th century. Modern ecstatic dance sometimes incorporates elements of tantra. Many different formats have developed since the 1970s, often spun off from Roth's 5Rhythms. After being taught by Roth in 1989, Susannah and Ya'Acov Darling-Khan founded the Moving Centre School in Britain in 1989, teaching the 5 rhythms across Europe. In the early 1990s, "Barefoot Boogie" in San Francisco offered twice weekly drug and alcohol free dance event very similar in form to contemporary ecstatic dance, without the name. In 2006, having met shamans in the Amazon, the Darling-Khans started their own ecstatic dance form, Movement Medicine. The science and environment journalist Christine Ottery, writing for The Guardian in 2011, suggested that "ecstatic dancing has an image problem" Other styles have developed in North America, too, including the Ecstatic Dance Community founded in 2000 by Bodhi Tara at Kalani Honua in Puna on the Big Island of Hawaii who then passed it on to DJ Max Fathom and influenced by Carol Marashi's 1994 Body Choir in Austin, Texas. Sydney 'Samadhi' Strahan founded Ecstatic Dance Evolution in Houston in 2003, while the Tribal Dance Community of Julia Ray opened in Toronto in 2006; it was renamed Ecstatic Dance Toronto in 2010. A more influential event program of ecstatic dance, simply named Ecstatic Dance, was founded in 2008 by Tyler Blank and Donna Carroll and held at Sweet's Ballroom in Oakland, California. == Reception ==

argued that the ecstatic dance of the Sufis and others was "primitive". Nettl added that ecstatic dance was both religious and erotic, giving examples from ancient Greece, medieval Christianity and Sufism. the dance theorist Fritz Böhme similarly asserted, without giving examples, that ecstatic dance lacked "artistic refinement", Philosophy According to philosopher Gediminas Karoblis, in early cultures, ecstatic dance was linked to religious ritual, releasing the dancer from the egocentric self, undoing self-consciousness and connecting to the absolute. In Karoblis's view, trance dances can be either ecstatic or magical. He considers that the trance of the whirling dervishes is genuinely ecstatic as it glorifies God, whereas shamanistic dance is not, being instead magical, as it is intended to induce effects in the world. Karoblis notes that all dance borders on ecstasy, as the catharsis that it produces, if good, cannot be controlled or "technically calculated", yet dancers depend upon it. This was in the context of a client who presented a continuing "motif" of dance, which appeared whenever "a major shift in attitude" was imminent. Parallels The anthropologist Michael J. Winkelman suggests that shamanism and modern raves share structures including social ritual and the use of dance and music for bonding, for communication of emotions, and for their effects on consciousness and personal healing. The musicologist Rupert Till places contemporary club dancing to electronic dance music within the framework of ecstatic dance. He writes that "club culture has elements of religion, spirituality and meaning. Its transgressional nature is partly a reaction to the history of repression of traditions of ecstatic dancing by Christianity, particularly by Puritan and Lutheran traditions." He notes that the scholars of music Nicholas Saunders and Simon Reynolds both discuss electronic dance music culture "in terms of trance rituals and ecstatic states." == See also ==