- Eline Kieft is a professional dancer and an accomplished anthropologist specialised in medical anthropology. Her teaching focuses on awareness expanding journeys through the body moving / dancing. Eline focuses on connecting mind, heart and body, the red thread through different phases of life, fulfilment and the experience of oneness with all creation.
She also offers exercises addressing the elements, feminine/masculine, the tree of life, and works with the the symbolism in Tarot cards, and more.
Eline works at the Coventry University in England, where she does research and teaches dance. She lives in England and France. On her website you can find links to some of her articles: “A Personal Relationship with the Mysteries,” “Dance as Moving Spirituality,” “Soul Loss and Retrieval: Restoring Wholeness Though Dance.”
http://elinekieft.com; http://www.clover-trail.com/
2. The 5Rhythms dance movement meditation devised by Gabrielle Roth, known dancer in the ‘70ties. Her inspiration was in ecstatic practices of shamanistic tradition, mystical dances of the East, Gestalt therapy and transpersonal psychology. The dance of the 5 rhythms she describes a a soul journey. The five rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. When danced in sequence, are known as a “Wave.” A typical Wave takes about an hour to dance. A Wave is the first “Map” taught in the 5Rhythms practice and it is meant to access the body’s wisdom on a deeper level. The next Map is: “Heartbeat” and it teaches how people embody and how they express fear, anger, sadness, joy and compassion. The next Map is “Cycles” gives insight about how one has internalised conditioning and relationships throughout the life cycles, specifically in the stages of birth, childhood, puberty, maturity and death. The next Map is “Mirrors”, or the psyche map, which gives insight of the ego, archetypes, spirit. The rhythms offer understanding of people’s innate powers – being, loving, knowing, seeing and healing. Gabrielle Roth drew a circular “Medicine Mandala” that related each rhythm to an emotion, a stage of life, a way of perceiving, and an aspect of the self: Rhythm Emotion Stage of life Way of perceiving Aspect of self Flowing Fear Birth Being Perceiving Staccato Anger Childhood Loving Heart Chaos Sadness Puberty Knowing Mind Lyrical Joy Maturity Seeing Soul Stillness. Compassion Death Healing. Spirit In 2017 there were 396 certified teachers in 50+ countries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cYYzcTzm6Y
3. Ya’Acov en Susannah Khan Darling, both students of Gabriele Roth, and their School for Movement Medicine, where Eline Kieft also studied: http://www.schoolofmovementmedicine.com) Ya’akov and Susannah integrate the 5Rhythms with Shamanism
4. Continuum Movement devised by Emilie Conrad. Emilie Conrad is like Gabrielle Roth a fierce dancer in the first place. She studied dance in New York, 2 1/2 years in Haiti, gave performances and lessons in LA. She had a terribly difficult childhood, went eventually into a deep depression, had then a powerful spiritual awakening which lasted for 8 years, and developed a theory of 3 anatomies and the Continuum Movement which is at the base of many following developments in dance. Emilie Conrad has impressed the world the most by healing/ improving with her technique severe spinal chord lesions with paralysis, sometimes existing for many years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3KBPqbPd-8&t=531s
5. Body Mind Centering devised by another dancer, Bonnie Bainbrige Cohen. Bonnie Bainbrige Cohen grew up in one of the biggest circuses in the US, her mother was a trapeze acrobat. Very colourful and unusual childhood. Later as a successful dancer she studied occupational therapy and devised her approach of Embodied Anatomy. She does an impressive work with her approach with children with brain damage. She also inspired a certain approach to dance which starts with different anatomical parts of the body, like a cell, the nervous system, the cerebrospinal fluid, the lungs, etc.
6. Anna Halprin, now 98 and still dancing and teaching. She is considered the creator of post-modern dance. After a serious illness in her fifties, she changed her approach to dance from performance oriented to socially and politically engaged dance involving communities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdpvC0-fi64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_nJWtEGkg
