Dancing To A Different Drum

Dancing to the drum as a way of self expression and healing is probably as old as mankind.

This tradition exists in Africa, north and south America, Australia,  Russia and  many other cultures and it  is alive and thriving in the west today.  In this dance there are no steps to be learnt, the only object is to be  fully ourselves and to move past the blocks and habits that restrict us.  It is a journey out of our heads and into our bodies that we modern humans seem hungry for.

Chris Southall has spent nine years drumming for Shamanic dance using Ecstatic Trance Dance and Gabrielle Roth's Five Rhythms.

Trance Dance has many varieties but as practiced by Chris the dancer moves with their eyes closed in the safety of the groups holding circle.  The drummer is focused on the dancer matching their energy and supporting them with his music.  The dancer can safely let go and experience being totally one with themselves and the dance.

Five Rhythms dancing allows all of the energies of life to be experienced as the music evolves from flowing through staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness.  When danced to live drumming there is a special relationship that grows between dancer and musician as each sparks the other through the energy wave of the dance.  The dancers expressing themselves in their own individual ways through the different rhythms to stillness.

Drum dance is grounding, releasing,  ecstatic, energizing and thriving through all age groups here in Britain today.  

Workshop and music CDs   Interactive drumming tutorial  Build a dome tent

Descriptions of:   Trance dance      Shamanic drumming & dance  Sweat Lodge

Articles on :  Holding our inner Child    Animal Medicine 

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Mail me:   chris@drumdance.co.uk     Home