Embodying spirituality - the dancing world of Auroville

Dance practices are even older than the invention of written languages. Archaeological evidence indicates that, for centuries, dance has played a major role not only as a performance art, but also as a form of storytelling and communication. 

India is one of the richest countries in terms of styles, holding hundreds of different performing dances for thousands of years, from the classical Bharatanatyam – the oldest Indian dance which originated in Tamil Nadu, enacting stories from Hindu mythology– to the modern Bollywood dance.

But you can also use dance as a tool of self-awareness, and to establish inner communication. 

What is the link between dancing and spirituality? How is this plastic expression used in Auroville?  

To answer these questions, Valentina took eight different dance classes with different teachers. She also observed the groups and talked with the facilitators about their objectives and motivations. 

Monday – Partner connection, Dance Offering with Dariya. 

Dariya has been giving this class for almost 18 years. She was doing Butoh before post-war Japanese theatre dance, but after she had a motorbike accident she shifted to a softer practice and created Dance Offering for Auroville.

“Dancing is one of the spaces that makes the bridge between the so-called mundane and the so-called spiritual”, Dariya says.

In her class, the movements come from listening to the body and allowing it to unfold like a flower from inside. You are not dancing to give a show, but to connect with yourself and to others and to “exercise the muscles of presence and awareness”, as she describes it. 

The class starts with a simple meditation in a circle to bring awareness to the present moment. A candle in the middle helps the mind to focus, and as we start concentrating on the body, Dariya asks us to say our names and bring a quality to the group representing what is present inside at the moment. The music starts slowly and builds up subtly for the next hour. For the last part some contact improvisation may be practiced, but you can choose to fuse with the group or not. The session ends with everybody lying down, almost melting into the floor in a deep relaxation. 

Dance Offering is also a celebration of our human affectionate nature and “a sharing of the fruits of the practice for mutual benefit”, in Dariya’s words. This is why she calls it an “Offering”.

Tango with Jorge

Jorge learned tango 20 years ago in Argentina, and he has been giving classes regularly in Auroville for 12 years.

With tango, you don’t dance with your mind, you don’t even dance for your partner. The first connection is with the music, which is “The Teacher'', as Jorge put it. Secondly, there is the relation you develop with your partner, which is based on feeling and harmonising the space between you, respecting the roles of leader and follower. These roles are related to the female and male principle: the Shankti and Shiva. It is a metaphor for the fact that in life you need both elements: sensibility and strength, action and reaction, giving and receiving. Tango is about respecting these roles and honouring the person that you are dancing with. 

Tango has many different steps, walks and embraces. One challenge is  to “dislocate” the music: to concentrate on only one of the various instruments and align one's footsteps with it. 

“Meditation and tango are very linked. It requires a lot of concentration and it can be a struggle to learn,” Jorge shares. The music was created by European immigrants coming to Argentina, so it is about being a foreigner, finding oneself in a new land and discovering what to do, which is why it has a melancholic energy. Perhaps this is one of the main reasons why tango is one of the most popular dances in Auroville. There are at least thirty regular practitioners and four advanced teachers here. Milongas (tango gatherings) are frequently organised and two international festivals per year are celebrated. These are the biggest ones in India and host professional teachers from all over the world.

Tuesday – Divine feminine, Feminine Dance with Galit

Galit has been offering  Feminine  Dance in Auroville since 2011. It is  a mixed style based on tribal and belly dance  movements. She learned the techniques in Israel, but here she has incorporated something that for her is much more important than the technique: self-acceptance. 

A very important part of the work is to deal with insecurity and self-image issues that may be present, releasing stuck energy in the uterus and pelvic area through the movements.  “We are not here to be perfect, we are here to celebrate our bodies”, Galit explains to the dancers. 

She has been doing this inner work herself, as she grew up in a repressed society where women were treated as being less important than men, being pressured to look and behave in a certain way. Consequently, the aim of her class is to provide a safe space of support and self-expression within this little sisterhood.

The class is usually small and intimate, and lasts around 90 minutes. We dance in front of a mirror half of the time, rehearsing the movements and creating a little dance routine. The other half is dedicated to warming up the body, stretching and performing for each other in a dancing circle. This last exercise helps to overcome shyness, to honour beauty and to give value to our femininity. 

“If you want to develop spirituality first you have to develop a good relationship with yourself. The foundation is to work in your body, in your soul, with your emotions. Once these things are lighter and clear you can aim for higher goals,” she explains. 

Odissi with Rekha

Rekha has been dancing Odissi for 40 years, performing all around the world. Her classes at Pitanga are small and attended by women only, but she has also been giving unisex classes at her studio near Auroville. 

Odissi is an ancient traditional dance-drama which originated in Odisha. It is an artistic manifestation of devotional love to the divine. Originally, Maharis (temple dancers) represented the diverse stories of Hindu mythology through this dance, which combines different elements, like statuesque postures and mudras. 

In this way it is probably the closest dance to Hatha Yoga and, unlike free expressive dances, it is a much more controlled movement meditation. Rekha stresses that right alignment and balance are essential to experience the flow of energy that is needed for this dance.  The energy should flow from the central axis to the limbs and end in the delicate mudras of the hands. She puts special emphasis on experiencing the spine as a hollow flute that connects sky with earth. 

Muscular effort is required in the legs and core, while relaxation should be experienced in the upper part (heart, arms, hands, face and eyes), integrating the two energies: grounding to earth and surrendering to the divine. In that way, “letting the dance dance you”.

She also combines other disciplines such as Kalari, Somatics and Pilates in her classes, and gets inspiration from the concept of Satchidananda (sat=existence; cit= consciousness; ananda= bliss). “If you look at your body and observe the sensation and movements with detachment, the process of tuning in and dancing is very joyful”, she explains.

Performing in front of an audience is a possible outcome of this practice, but the highest objective is to reunite and perform for the divine within, integrating this Satchidananda state not only in dance but also as part of your personality. 

Wednesday – Exploring Contemporary Dance with Gopal

Gopal is a young professional dancer, trained in Delhi in Contemporary Dance. He recently moved to Auroville and started working with Surya Performance Lab facilitating this class, which he describes as a mix of improvisation and choreography. The session starts with a welcoming circle where people share their names. Then he starts immersing the participants in an exploration of the joint movements and different ways of standing, sitting, crawling and rolling, accompanied by soft music. He may ask you to find a quality and express it to different speeds and styles of music. At the end of the class everyone makes a little dance, integrating the learned techniques. 

Contemporary Dance offers a space of exploration where movement and rhythm are the tools, but the main focus is on expression.  “Dance is a crucial part of my life. Before I had a total different personality, I can’t talk much to people, but when I’m dancing, something opens up deeply, so it is my way of communicating” Gopal explains.

Thursday – Releasing Chakra Guided Dance with Vera

Vera feels that dancing and singing is her means of expression. She was giving regular guided meditations  and offering occasional free floor dance before. A year ago she decided to fuse these two practices. 

Chakra Dance is based on the belief that different frequencies in music are related to the vibration of each of the seven energy centres in our body. 

The session starts with a small meditation in a circle to relax the mind and anchor into the present moment. The instruction is to sit or lay down in a space of power, and while the music builds Vera facilitates a journey from the root chakra (base of the spine) to the crown of the head, visualizing colours, elements and shapes and making movements and sounds. As the practitioner dives into sensations and connects through movement she/he can release blockages that may have been stuck for a long time.  

Vera explains, “You are not making up a dance, it is something that emerges if you surrender to what wants to be expressed, which is always exactly what you need at that moment.” 

She adds, “Spirituality is simple. It is being in the moment, sharing your love, being who you are…but we are born with something that create setbacks and resistance. Dancing is a great help to unblock you.”

Friday – Tripping 5Rhythms with Irena

The Practice of 5Rhythms comes from US. It was invented by Gabriele Roth, who observed how traumas and events in people’s lives accumulate in the memory of the body and affect the way we move and relate to each other. She created this dance to transform the emotions that are stuck in the body from chaos into “the three big Cs”: Creativity, Connection and Community. In that sense,  5Rhythms is a therapy as much as a spiritual practice. 

Irena learned it in Prague 12 years ago and she and Joke have been facilitating sessions in Auroville for one year. 

Irena actively guides the two hour session, although you are free to follow her instructions or not. The music is organised in a wave moving through five frequencies, each one of them related with a particular principle. 

The first rhythm is Flowing. It is related to Mother Earth, the Sacred Feminine, and the connection with our mothers. The instruction here is to put the attention on following the movements of the feet.   

The second rhythm is Staccato, which represents the fire, the male energy, and the connection with our father. The key here is to move from the hips and to allow the passion from within to express itself. 

The third rhythm is Chaos, which is related to both female and male energy. Now the beat of the music is allowed to take over the body, and often people can be seen jogging, jumping, screaming and laughing. It is when  emotions that have been stuck come out.    

After this catharsis, the wave goes down into the fourth rhythm which is Lyrical. Irena describes it as “Letting go of letting go”. The body’s gateway for lyrical is the free movements of the arms. You are encourage to be playful and dance with the soul, “as you were naturally doing as a kid before we forgot and became too serious”, she says.  

The final rhythm is Stillness. The invitation for this last part is to keep moving in even a minimalistic way, and to return the attention to your breathing. 

This practice can be really transformative, not only in observing your patterns but also in overcoming fear and connecting on a deeper level with others. The session finishes with a closing circle in which the participants can share their feelings and inner journeys in a safe place. Irena feels that Auroville offers a healthy environment to hold the sacredness of the practice: “It is beautiful to see the genuine unconditional love from people coming here. It is starting to feel more like a community now.”  

Saturday – Freedom, Free Dance with Priscilla 

Priscilla has been offering Free Dance and performing as a DJ for ten  years. 

She plays music similarly to 5Rhtyms’s structure, but she doesn’t provide any instructions to the dancers. Her sessions are all about letting go. 

For her, the real work is to release through dance the expectations that you may carry about yourself and about others. The body is encouraged to respond spontaneously to the music, “as if nobody was watching you”, she describes. 

The sessions usually start with people lying down on the floor and as the pace of the music increases, the body movements accelerate. The music climaxes with heavy beats and then slows down again until there is complete silence. Finally, people come together for a closing circle. A simple mantra is chanted for the integration of the experience and as a reminder that even if the journey is completely personal, the support of the collective is there.  

To dance without any guidance –many times with your eyes closed – can be challenging for many. “For me, freedom is the most spiritual thing in life. To be free to just be who you are and develop your inner centre is the best service that you can do for yourself and for humanity,” Priscilla concludes.

Sunday – Resting :

The benefits of dance are endless. Recent discoveries  have found that not only diverse skills such as coordination, mobility, flexibility and creativity are greatly improved, but dance enables the brain to rewire its connections very fast, accelerating our progress in all areas of life.  

It has also the benefit of providing grounding, which in a place like Auroville can be really fundamental, especially when we tend to give so much energy to dreams, visions, ideas and words. It is always good to come back to the present moment, to the individual body and, finally, to the collective one. Perhaps this is why dancing practices are gaining more popularity these days, either as a good way of relaxing after a busy day or as a sadhana (spiritual path) in itself. 

Above all, dancing Is a great way of dissolving ego. And isn’t that our main mission in this ambitious shared dream? Can we deal with that challenge as a collective on the dance floor?