This Five Day Dance Workshop Unlocked Something Deep Inside Me
Earlier this year, I took part in Wavelength: Ways of Waves, a five day dance workshop, in the tradition of 5Rhythms. For five days straight, I danced my soul out of its prison. As crazy as it sounds, I feel like it unlocked some secret power hidden deep inside me.
What is 5Rhythms? It's less a dance style, and more a dance journey. It’s danced in waves, passing through five different rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. By passing through the five rhythms, we take an emotional journey, towards the destination of blissful catharsis. It’s not just a dance, it’s a way to heal yourself through movement.
What about the workshop? It was run by Tammy Burstein, with help from Joel Stanley, two 5Rhythms teachers. Time in the workshop was a loosely even split among three parts:
Guided dance exercises.
Free dancing through 5Rhythms waves.
Talking or writing, in pairs and groups.
I shared it with twenty-two fellow students, all bringing their own unique energy. I've been dancing this style for a year, but it was the first time I’d danced so long with the same people. Over the five days, I watched them loosen up, drop their emotional guard, and grow as dancers. Which was wonderful to watch. And I watched myself growing, too!
In one exercise, we danced the rhythm of Chaos. Our bodies formed a large circle, with space for three people in the center to dance all the wildness of their soul: raw, free, unbound. Each time someone left the circle, a new person would join. There was no specific order; people left and entered as the spirit moved them. During that exercise, something inside me clicked. Watching from the edge, I knew, "I want to be inside the circle. That’s where my place is." And that’s where I found myself.
Later that day, far from the pounding drums, I shared lunch with some fellow students at a quiet Armenia diner. As we nibbled on falafel, one of them told me “You’re dancing in the Chaos circle actually brought my to tears…just from the sheer joy of it.” People had told me my dancing made them smile before, but that was the first time it had made someone cry (the next day, I also hit the milestone of "making someone laugh!").
How did taking the workshop feel? I definitely felt an improvement in my dance technique…more fluid, more graceful, more confident. That might be a natural consequence of dancing all day, for five days straight. But some of the exercises really stretched my dance brain, and taught me new ways to move.
“Dancing well” is not really what it’s about, though. The benefits went far beyond technique. In the weeks after the workshop, I felt like I'd unlocked some hidden power within myself. For much of my life, I've struggled with insomnia. But suddenly, I found myself sleeping deeper. My whole body felt lighter. Even walking down the sidewalk, I was still dancing.
The feeling faded with time. I keep dancing, but life can be a difficult rhythm. But now that I know the feeling, I know to rekindle it, and keep that ember burning. I keep dancing the rhythms everywhere I can: on a dance floor, on the battlefield of life, in moonlit woods, in my dreams.
Why was it worth taking? I must make this clear: I'm a materialist, who doesn’t believe in the supernatural at all. In these sorts of spaces, I often find myself playing the skeptic's role against “crystal bathing rituals” and all that jazz. I don't even think I could ever seriously describe something as "juicy." But I feel there's really something there in 5Rhythms. Like meditation or yoga, it has real potential as a therapeutic technique.
I must make this clear too: it’s NOT a replacement for a licensed therapist. But studies have shown, dancing may be more effective than drugs in treating depression. Which makes perfect sense: our body and mind turn on the same gears. By moving our body with intention, we influence our emotional state. If you move like a dancer, you become a dancer. If you move like a warrior, you become a warrior. If you move like a lover, you become a lover. The innovation of 5Rhythms is taking us on a specific journey of movement, with a corresponding cathartic emotional journey.
If you want to try dancing 5Rhythms yourself, in the Boston area, I highly recommend Joel Stanley’s 5Rhythm’s classes. He hosts three per month, which you can find on his his page of events…there might even be another workshop coming up! I also publish a monthly mailing list of conscious dance events in the Boston area, including 5Rhythms and many more. Elsewhere in the world, you can find local 5Rhythms classes on their website. If you do end up trying it, I hope it helps you as much as it helped me!
