Ishtar's Club Orientation Philosophy

'Dance and the world dances with you'

Club Orientation is  a loose  collective of like-minded performers  and artists. Our mission is to uplift and heal people through dance and music. We seek to create safe communities, where people can express themselves creatively and spiritually.  Our goal is for all our work is to  extend cultural boundaries and for people to come together in a positive way as equals and collaborators.

 Our workshops, performances and classes focus on the human urge to enjoy life, which is expressed in music, dance and all creativity. Ultimately all things are spirit. We are all our diverse aspects of the one. We all have a right to express our individual natures, cultures and opinions in our own way.

Dancing is an expression of individuality at the same time as connecting to the collective. The dances you see during our Club Orientation Nights represent a mixture of spontaneity and discipline, an interplay of dark and light.

Bellydance and Indian dance are both connected to goddess spirituality which emphasise our connectedness with everything. The moves describe a ‘sacred geometry’, which works in magical ways to transform and transcend.

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.

Dance is a celebration of the 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 ancient movements it is possible to access blissful states of awareness.

I do believe we are all one and we have the potential to be really free without fear or sanctions. We are all connected and share a common destiny as human beings. When we forget our connectedness it is possible to  abuse and destroy others and the world’s resources. The ancient Egyptian religious text defines the principle of spiritual unity succinctly, "I am all which is, I am all that was, what will be. No mortal man has lifted my veil. To me all things owe their existence."

 "Everything I do is motivated by metaphysical, transformative and alchemical concepts. I want to heal people by fun and encouraging them to wake up from the hypnotic monotony that the media and mainstream society encourages.

I am interested in all religions and respect all those who respect the freedom of others to worship in whatever way suits them (or not).The practice of Bellydance is spiritual to me, because it makes people feel better and enjoy life more.  I advocate a none competitive, none hierarchical, feminist form of teaching and performance.

Modern physics is one area that is highlighting the interconnectedness of all things. 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. Ancient pictorial descriptions of the God Shiva show the same patterns emanating from his dance as those recently discovered as being created by the movements of subatomic particles. Belly dance replicates the subatomic universal movements with its emphasis on spontaneity and responding to the internal and external environment. 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 embodied self.The ancient movements can connect us to the archetype of the divine mother.

The world is changing. Consciousness of the interconnectedness of everything, social justice, the universal soul and the power of thoughts and intentions is more apparent now than ever.dance can be  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. Dance and the world dances with you.

Ishtar