Ancestral Connections: Dance and movement

Dance is forgotten medicine.

Dance provides an opportunity to move energy through the body at a cellular level and connect with a community. It is an important part of every tradition and culture, and despite what we may have been led to believe, anyone can dance. If you can breathe, you can dance. If you need to breathe, then dance. Choreographer and dancer Anna Halprin said, “Movement is breath made visible.” When all else fails, we fall back on our breath. The breath guides us to where we are stuck and when we need to release.

When we hold our breath, we are close to pain, trauma, and what has become stuck within us and our systems. When we see, acknowledge, and heal, the breath releases, and life force flows once again. Dance is a unique form of movement that allows us to move with and through whatever is emerging at any given time. By bringing what we feel into movement, we give it breath, make it visible, and can be present with it without disassociating or freezing. Very difficult material can be processed in movement, supported by music and a conscious relationship to a community of dancers.

As in ancient times, dance today is used to connect with ancestors or the spiritual world. Dance can take us into a trance, accessing altered states of consciousness. In trance, images, thoughts, visions, and realizations emerge directly from the body. Many ancient healing traditions used dance in ceremonies, with shamans dancing to connect to their ancestors, receiving guidance and wisdom.

Through movement, what lives in us unconsciously at a cellular level can be expressed, released, and integrated. These stages form part of the shamanic wave, taught by movement therapist and co-founder of Ancestral Connections® Sian Palmer, offering an opportunity to access deeper wisdom, especially the gifts and strengths passed down to us by our ancestors. In accessing these resources somatically, we strengthen and fortify both body and soul, moving with and through whatever emerges.

I experience great joy in dance, along with the lightness and playfulness often missing in therapeutic settings. The wisdom of humour and play has always touched me deeply when sitting with elders and spiritual teachers. Younger generations tend to take healing so seriously that it can feel heavy and draining. Dance gives us permission to access younger parts of ourselves, to experiment and play, even when facing deeper truths or inner images.