The Community Center

WORKSHOPS

Tranceformation

A Workshop in Trance Dance, Ritual, and Electronic Acoustic Groove Music

Trance Formation is a workshop led by Sacred Center founder and director Robin Sylvan that explores the profound altered states of conscious-ness generated by trance-dancing to electronic dance music and how to create a sacred ritual container to direct these powerful energies toward spiritual goals - prayer, healing, vision, divine guidance, and beyond. This workshop balances deep experiential practice with discursive teachings and processing techniques, so that the material can understood and integrated by one's whole being -- mind, body, emotions, and spirit.

We begin our journey studying the ancient traditions of shamanism and West African possession religion in order to grasp how, for thousands of years, human beings have used the sonic driving of a steady drum beat to generate trance states that facilitate transit between ordinary reality and spiritual worlds. Shamanism utilizes straight four beat drumming and passive listening for journeys to spiritual realms while West African possession practices utilize polyrhythmic drumming and active dancing to invite the spirits to visit this realm. We also examine how some of these musical techniques and practices can be found in the underlying substratum of contemp-orary popular music, thus allowing us to tap into this ancient power in contexts we don't normally identify as sacred.

Next, we explore the world of raves and electronic dance music, tracing the history from its origins in American disco, house, and techno, through the explosion of the British underground rave scene and the Summer of Love, on into its mainstream popularity throughout Europe, including the Love Parade and large festivals, its penetration into the US, and

its current articulations. We examine the various types of electronic dance music (house, techno, trance, drum n bass/jungle, downtempo, ambient, etc.) and the utopian alternative subculture that grew around the rave scene (exemplified by the aphorism PLUR -- peace, love, unity, respect), paying particular attention to its more spiritually oriented variants. We also examine the deep trance states that are attained through continuous dancing to highly amplified beat-heavy electronic music over the course of many hours, enhanced by high-tech visuals and mind-altering substances like MDMA, and how these powerful experiences open one's spirituality and connection to the divine.

Some raves utilize opening and closing ceremonies, chanting, visualization, meditation, altars, religious/spiritual iconography, and other ritual components to create a sacred context for these trance states. Intuitively, we understand that profound spiritual energies are being generated in raves and that something more can be done with these energies than simply having a good time. In shamanic, West African, and other spiritually mature cultures, they have developed a sophisticated ritual technology that harnesses these energies and directs them toward sacred ends such as healing and divine guidance. The heart of this workshop is to explore developing just such a ritual technology to harness and direct the powerful experiential states of rave trance-dancing toward sacred ends. This exploration includes all of the ritual components mentioned above (chanting, visualization, meditation, altars), the use of posture, gesture, and movement, and musical sequencing that traces the arc of an effective ceremony. Although this is largely a group exploration, this workshop also shows how to create your own individual trance dance practice to tap into these energies on an ongoing basis in your daily life.