Gabrielle Roth is an internationally renowned theater director, philosopher and artist who has developed her own form of ecstatic dance, the five rhythms dance. She herself calls her dance technique „The dancing path“ and describes it as a moving meditation and as a shamanic journey. According to her, there are five sacred rhythms which are the essence of the body: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyric, and stillness. These rhythms make up the whole of our experience and are reflected in each of our actions and emotions.

The Five Rhythms Practice

The basis of Gabrielle Roth’s teaching is that we find our true self only by using and acknowledging our body, not the conditioned mask which our culture dictates, but the real person within. According to her, our body is the ground of our lives and the expression of our existence. Everything that happens to us is stored and reflected in our body, and the path to wholeness must start in it. Only when we truly inhabit our physical self can the healing journey begin.

The way to true life is ecstatic dance. To reach our centre, we must use our body in our own individual, self-expressive dance. The dance is free-form and totally spontaneous, but should be done as a progression, in the order she prescribes. In the five sacred rhythms, flowing is the first. Flowing is stretching, undulating, and moving in circling waves. Then the music changes into staccato. Staccato is sharp and explosive, moving in lines and angles, with short percussive movements. Then comes chaos. Chaos takes everything to extremes, letting our controlling mind go and letting the body loose. Afterwards, almost as a relief, comes lyrical. Lyrical is light, joyful, and airy, it is a moving of serene joy and celebration. Last comes stillness. Stillness is the slow winding down, the grounding. Every move is done in slow motion with pauses and restarts. It is moving with strength and contact, feeling the depth of our breath and the floor beneath our feet, until movement ceases altogether in a strong awareness of the now.

Gabrielle Roth has provided her own music recordings for her five rhythm dance, although any music which fits the type of movement can be used.

Gabrielle Roth Portrait

Gabrielle Roth is an internationally renowned theater director, philosopher, and artist who has developed her own form of ecstatic dance. She is the artistic director of her dance-theater-music company, The Mirrors and is best-selling author of three books. Through her recording company Raven Recording, which she founded together with her husband, Robert Ansell, she produced more than twenty music compilations. For the past thirty-five years, her teachings have reached schools, corporate offices, hospitals, theaters, and growth centers.Her work has been featured in many national and international journals. She lives in New York City.

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