Dance and the World Dances with You!
BY Ishtar
 II have been dancing for most of my life. To me dancing is an expression of individuality at the same time as fitting in to the collective (as with folk/group/circle dances) with Arab women's dance's, one has a chance to express the aspects of life that connect one to nature. Arab dance has a symbolic right brain sense to it. Usually there is no linier intellectual narrative; it is a response to how the music moves the individual. A mixture of spontaneity and discipline, an interplay of dark and light.
I have been interested in the personal growth movement for many years I apply the techniques that I have learnt in all my work, from the many teachers that I have had in this area.
My class's workshops and performances have a strong emphasis on pleasure, fun, laughing, enjoyment, learning, transcending, healing and mutual support and encouragement. I am coming from the position of realising that the body contains the light of the soul; through movement and creativity we can connect to the place where we are all one. The practice of belly dancing has illuminated me to Goddess spirituality and helped me to understand the divine nature of female sexuality and reproductive process and our connectedness with everything.
I like to combine the holistic health benefits of the dance, with the glamour and fun of cabaret performance techniques. Belly dance highlights all the different feminine archetypes. One can express innocence, artistry, coquettishness, sexiness and feminine power all in the same dance piece. The movements give the dancer the vocabulary to express the many facets of femininity. I love to design choreographies for myself and for groups and individuals. I have orchestrated a variety of performances with people from a wide variety of abilities. Including women from a women's aid refuge, professional contemporary dancers, pop videos, and school children.
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Shamans often require costumes to do their shamanising. The wearing of shamanic costume symbolises the transition of the profane to the sacred. Belly dancers experience a similar process. We become for the time of the performance, a transpersonal being, a connection to a Goddess archetype. the make up and exotic clothes act as catalysts to this experience. I have performed in hundreds of diverse situations for many communities. Most of the time I can raise the energy and make people feel happy. In the sense of directing the energies of people, one could draw comparisons to shamanic practise. I frequently involve shamanic and metaphysical concepts in all the facets of my work. I think one of the reasons my workshops are popular is that I always place a high emphasis on humour and play.
Dance is a metaphor for life, - we move to the rhythm of the music in our own way. Self-discovery is a prerequisite for self-mastery. Through the dance we can learn to exceed what we think our body can do and yet to know its limitations. If we adopt a challenging system of movements (such as belly dance) and we practise with discipline, dedication and an ego less desire to progress, we can move beyond the things that hold us back. If done with the correct intention, we can use the movement system of belly dance to evolve personally. Performing belly dance involves interacting with the audience it is good that belly dancers can' give permission' for others to dance and 'let go'.
I want to give women the confidence to be themselves to affirm, -your body is sacred and beautiful. The body is the temple of the soul, through conscious movement you can use the body to transcend ordinary awareness and free the soul. Through the ancient movements it is possible to access blissful states of awareness, similar to certain meditative states.
 Having tried a lot of movement therapies belly dancing is the one (for me) that seems to bring with it feelings of enhanced esteem and euphoria. Having a background in psychology has made me adopt a scientific approach to the study of the phenomenon of the cause and effect of human mood. Over the last ten years I have surveyed literally hundreds of people that I have taught on this issue. These people have expressed many transformative effects of the dance both physical and mental. Diseases that are connected to stress, guilt and feelings of low self-esteem seem to respond well. Most women have been programmed to not like their bodies. For some they do not perceive the physical self as a recipient of pleasurable experience. Moving in a way that feels good is a revelation to some women.
Our physical dialogue, (so often unconscious) can be changed and reprogrammed. With practise we learn to send positive confident none verbal signals out to the world. The practice of belly dance within this framework makes people move in a way that will eventually give out more positive assertive signals. Life is easier because people treat us better. We can and change our energy fields with dance and other movement therapies When we have mastered the difficult movements we feel a sense of achievement and control, when we can make our bodies do what we want them to do this can spill into interpersonal career and psychological events.
Healing is often bound up with a spiritual framework If we present the movements of Arabic women's dance with the philosophy which has inspired them in preherstoric times, - that is a celebration of the universal cycles condensed in the figure of the divine feminine archetype, life changing events can and do occur.
The world suffers due to the belief in Cartesian dualism. If we realised our inter
connectedness with everything we would place more value on the preservation of all life. The Native American saying 'No tree would be so stupid to have its branches fight with each other' expresses these phenomena succinctly. Modern physics is one area that is highlighting the interconnectedness of all things. I believe the dedicated practice of belly dance can and does promote this awareness .The body affects the mind and is also part of the mind. The universal dance transcends the separation between mind and body. One can become a creative construct of the amazing diversity of life; Belly dance is the dance of life and death and so presents a holistic truth.
The ancient movements may have connected us to the archetype of the divine mother, who will encourage us to nurture rather than compete, to be strong yet yielding. It is not my body that is dancing it is the I, the very essence of consciousness that allows the universe to flow and express its connection through the body.
When we dance together with this in mind we connect in an honest natural way, we realise the beauty that shines through all of us. We realise that we all breath the same air, share the same emotions and have a common destiny as inhabitors of mother earth.
The world is changing - consciousness of the interconnectedness of everything, the universal soul and the power of thoughts and intentions is more apparent now than ever. Belly dance replicates the subatomic universal movements with its emphasis on spontaneity and responding to the internal and  external environment, it is perfect for this time. Dance and the world dances with you. The dance is about healing, not just on an individual level but the human and none human collective. Where the intellect can fail us the body can speak honestly. We dance to our hearts rhythm; any one who wants to can listen, and join in.
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