This Is The Beauty That Is Dance Tribe

I danced yesterday at the amazing Santa Barbara Dance Tribe. An every Sunday, two hour ecstatic dance event of movement and motion and love and connection. It is quite amazing. My middle daughter comes with me. We have been dancing together since I first brought her along last December when she was home from school on break. Now that she has been home for the summer we are able to dance together quite often. 

It is such a gift to have this time with her.

We dance together in that wonderful way that is playful when a remake of Dirty Dancing's Time of my Life fills the room. And other times in a more soulful celebration of knowing each other and of knowing a music more lyrical and haunting as we fall into movement that is mirrored back and forth between us.

And we dance with others like this also. This is the beauty that is Dance Tribe. That there is an opportunity for connection in that heartfelt and creative way that only comes through when our voices are stilled and we rediscover that deep and familiar way of communicating that is easily forgotten. The communication of heart and soul that resonates through our bodies as we align with the rhythm of those around us.

And also when we fill the space on our own, a dance of one. 

For being in this room of swirling lights and pulsing beats or slow, smooth notes or haunting chants propels us into movement that, while introspective and uniquely our own, is still a part of the whole. An energy resonates from each of us to create this space. And so even in those times where we dance alone, we are held in the cradle of our collective movements and we feel each others spirits breath out and in and out again.

It is lovely.