Press Releases
Chakra Trancen-dance: the Keys to Natural Ecstasy
Media release - July 2003Ecstatic dance specialist and Kundalini Dance pioneer Antara Dekanic has released her second interactive CD titled, Chakra Trancen-dance: the Keys to Natural Ecstasy. Antara's first CD The Chakra Journey, co-produced with the infamous London night club, Return To The Source in 1993, sold over 50,000 copies in its first pressing (the CD sold over 120,000 by its third pressing). Charka Trancen-dance has been created as an interactive ecstatic dance journey through the chakras, and works by using breath rhythms, sound frequencies and shamanic dance beats and melodies that specifically correlate to each chakra. The accompanying, beautifully illustrated 36-page booklet is an instructional tool that provides dancers with all they need to know about breath, chakra psychology and the human energy system to enhance their ecstatic dance experience. The CD starts with the tribal stomping tempo of the earth chakra and works its way up to the celestial stillness of the crown chakra. Seductive sitars, acid riffs, didgeridoos, crystal bowls, whale songs, and intoxicating female vocals mixed with fat dance beats all combine to create a mystical fusion of world music that offers a liberating dance work-out for the mind, body and soul. "Charka Trancen-dance is a tool for activating and clearing the build up of stress and emotional tension that gets stuck in the body," Antara explains of the method she has taught to thousands worldwide. "This effortless emotional energy clearing leaves one feeling cleansed and energised with a deep sense of stillness and inner peace." Since 1992, Antara Dekanic has captured worldwide media and public attention through her ecstatic dance events in London, Amsterdam, Hollywood, L.A and Australia. Now based in Byron Bay, NSW, Antara has joined forces with music producer Orlando Allen (Tiger eye Studios) and UK producer Darragh Brady (Kusha Deep Records) to create an interactive dance journey that blends ancient sound healing keys into a danceable contemporary sound. To quote Brady: "The Charka Trancen-dance project clarified in my mind the fact that music is an all powerful tool with a science behind it. Used wisely, it can lift us way above our third dimensional view-points." "Charka Trancen-dance transforms dance into an ecstatic experience. By co-ordinating the breath with your dance you experience a spontaneous release of suppressed emotional energy that leaves you feeling refreshed, revived and euphoric," Antara explains. "Long term benefits of Kundalini Dance include improved libido, health, energy levels, creativity, self-awareness and self-esteem. Charka Trancen-dance is a multi-purpose, experiential musical tool that activates natural states of ecstasy. Its aim is to take dance in to the shamanic realm of ecstatic body centred transformation.
For access to images, review copies and further media information, please contact Veda Dante on 02 9386 0073, 0409 080 567 or veda@dantespeak.com.au For information on Kundalini Dance courses, retreats and teacher trainings with Antara Dekanic email antara@kundalini-dance.com or call 0421 160 841.
ANTARA Dekanic
"When I dance my body opens, my mind becomes still and I dissolve into the infinite where all is one. I am in ecstasy. Ecstasy is my high, a natural state of pure cellular bliss. Ecstasy is a timeless, ego - less zone where I feel connected to the whole universe. When I am ecstatic, I am unified in my body, mind, heart and soul. I know what it is to walk this life divided, pushed and pulled between love and fear, joy and pain, between my true heart knowing and my unconscious actions. It is my quest to heal that split. When I am ecstatic there is no split, there is no fear, there is no duality. I embody love, I am whole. I am taken out of the limited confines of my conditioned egoic mind into a higher perspective based in universal love and truth. For me dance is my spiritual practice, I was born to ecstatically dance and it is my gift to take others with me. I have been exploring the transformational path of ecstatic dance for 14 years. My passion for this work has taken me all over the world to train with the major pioneers in the ecstatic dance and movement therapy field. These pioneers include ecstatic dance shaman, author and teacher Gabrielle Roth, dance therapist and psychologist Marcia Leventhal, Trance Dance pioneer, Frank Natale and finally, Hawaiian Kahuna mind-body therapist, Sandra Michael. I also studied dance-movement therapy at Roehampton University in London from 1993-1994. Whilst apprenticing with one of England's leading healers, Elizabeth St John, over a two - year period in the early nineties, I began developing my own form of ecstatic dance that specifically focused on working with the bodies chakra system. Through years of deepening and refining the work, I have come to call my work Kundalini Dance. It is a synthesis of dance, healing, tantra, shamanism, chakra therapy and transpersonal psychology: a marriage between East and West, ancient and future transformational technologies, designed to empower people in awakening the true-self. I see everyone has an inner healer, a shaman within, one who can feel, see and work with the unseen inner energy forces. I feel others are just like me; they want to live fully present, consciously awake and free. Since 1991, I have taken thousands of people across the globe, into the remembrance of how to work with their innate inner energy, their chakras and to transform the pain of the past, purify and move into ecstasy. I pioneered the Chakra Dance Journey workshops, which became popularised by Return to the Source in London between the years 1994-1997, when we co-produced the Chakra Journey double CD with a 72-page booklet - with over 100,000 copies sold it was a huge success. I have facilitated Chakra Dance Journeys in Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Maui, Hawaii, Bali, Sydney and, at my home base here in Byron Bay, Australia. I have worked with small intimate groups and facilitated Chakra Dance Journeys in Brixton Academy, London, for up to 6000 people. Over the past two years, as well as facilitating ecstatic dance events and courses. I have been writing, creating a DVD and have co-created another interactive chakra journey dance music CD entitled Charka Trancen-dance: The Keys to Natural Ecstasy."
Antara Dekanic
KUNDALINI DANCE
WHAT IS KUNDALINI DANCE?Kundalini Dance is a unique form of ecstatic dance developed and taught by Antara Dekanic world wide over the past 11 years. Kundalini Dance is a practice that is deeply transformational and totally ecstatic. It rejuvenates the body and helps to create and maintain health and vitality. It clears old stagnant emotional energy out of the body, brings insight and clarity and supports the awakening of higher consciousness. In Kundalini Dance we let go of form and surrender to an organic energy flow coming deep from within. In that surrender, the body opens, the mind becomes still and we know ecstasy. When we are ecstatic we are whole, unified in body, mind, heart and soul. No previous dance experience is necessary; Kundalini Dance is simple to learn and fun to do. HOW DOES KUNDALINI DANCE WORK? Kundalini dance is an ecstatic dance journey through the chakras. The chakras are the bodyÕs energy centres that are located vertically and sequentially along the spine. Each of the seven main chakras governs different organs, different body parts and different emotions. Specific issues relating to survival, creativity, sexuality, personal power, love, relationships, communication, intuition and spiritual dimensions are all expressed through the chakras. Kundalini Dance combines dance movements with special breathing techniques to purify and express the energy of each chakra. This releases stagnant and repressed emotions or thought forms that have become trapped in the mind and body. When you open the body, surrender, and let go of your emotional stress and tension and give it up to the dance, it creates an opening a sense of expansion, freedom and inner peace. The practice leaves one feeling cleansed, positive and energized. WHAT IS KUNDALINI DANCE GOOD FOR? On the physical level Kundalini Dance releases physical and mental stress to leave you feeling refreshed, revived and euphoric. Stress stores itself in our tissues and cells, which blocks the energy or chakra system. If stress is not regularly released it causes tension and eventually dysfunction and disease. In the Kundalini Dance sessions we focus on clearing the blockages to revitalise, rejuvenate and rebalance the bodyÕs vital systems. On an emotional level Kundalini Dance practice clears emotional energy out of the cells, the organs, the chakras and the energy system. The spontaneous movement and sound that is expressed in ecstatic dance stimulates endorphins in the brain, which induce feelings of wellbeing and euphoria. On a mental level the practice brings insight and clarity. The combination of breath rhythms and movement induce a light state of conscious trance. Ecstatic dance, like meditation is a vehicle to move you into a state of no mind - a very deep inner stillness - where you can access the wisdom and truth within. On a spiritual level ecstatic dance is a direct way to commune with the source, with your essential self; where you know and remember who you really are. Ecstasy is an ego-less state of no - mind, where our inherent dilemma of separation dissolves and we feel at one with the whole universe. HOW DO I FIND OUT MORE? For information on Kundalini Dance courses, retreats and teacher trainings with Antara Dekanic phone 02 6685 3945 / 0421-160841or visit www.kundalini-dance.com. The "Charka Trancen-dance: The Keys to Natural Ecstasy" CD is available nationally through Hot Records, and online at www.kundalini-dance.com
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Article featured in "Shining Bright Magazine": Kundalini Dance - The Keys to Natural Ecstasy Australia, Spring 2003
An ecstatic dance workout for body, mind and soul. Kundalini Dance is a unique form of ecstatic dance developed and taught by Antara Dekanic world-wide over the past 11 years. Kundalini Dance is a practice that is deeply transformational and totally ecstatic, the practice rejuvenates the body, clears old stagnant emotional energy, brings insight and clarity into limiting beliefs and supports the awakening and integration of higher consciousness. Kundalini Dance is a revolutionary new method for self-healing and personal awakening. Antara inspires dancers to generate their innate sexual energy, their kundalini, and use it to purify the body-mind and move into natural states of ecstasy. As Kundalini rises upward she activates and purifies the chakras. In the Kundalini Dance sessions the chakras are our journey map, we breathe into them and dance them awake. The chakras are gateways to different parts of ourselves, the chakras deeply touch the core of who we are and how we perceive and express ourselves in our daily lives. Issues relating to survival, sexuality, personal power, life work, relationships, love, creativity and communication, intuition and spiritual dimensions are all expressed through the chakras. Physiologically each chakra links the subtle energy body with the physical body, each one in charge of channeling energy into specific organs, endocrine glands and body systems. Working with the chakras through rhythmic breath and dance movement expression helps to balance the chakra system as a whole. Each chakra inspires a totally different style of movement, and focuses on opening different body parts. For example, dancing the sex chakra inspires a fluid dance; it is like water, sensual and flowing. We initially energize the chakra focusing on hips and pelvis, circling and spiraling, creating an energetic lubricant that opens up the whole body. Each chakra carries the blue print of all our life experiences; they carry the programmes at the core of our sub-conscious. Bringing the feeling content of their energies through dance helps bring awareness and insight into those deep impulses and patterns that run our lives. Each chakra has its own rhythmic breath sequence that when incorporated with movement will activate and potentialize the specific aspects of consciousness related to that chakra. Pranically breathing into the heart chakra fills you with feelings of unconditional love and joy, connecting you deeply into your essence. Similarly pranically breathing into the solar plexus chakra creates an expanded sense of personal power, vitality and fearless uninhibited creative expression. As the chakras hold both the positive and negative experiences of our lives, pranic chakra breathing also supports the spontaneous clearing and purification of old stagnant emotional energies out of the chakras and the associated organs. On a physical level this allows more life force to flow into the different body systems, bringing more health and vitality. Kundalini Dance requires you to drop your socially acceptable mask and embrace all of you, the light and the dark, and give it all up to the dance. We accept ourselves totally as we are and then the journey of transformation becomes an ecstatic celebration. Any body can do this practice; every body was born to dance. This is an invitation for you to come and Kundalini Dance. Antara Dekanic will be facilitating an eight-week course, in Byron Bay, commencing May 26th. This course is designed to give participants a deep understanding of the chakra system and how to work with it, for both physical and emotional self-healing and as an integral tool for working with clients. This course is a pre-requisite for both, Level 2: Integrating the Mental Body and the Kundalini Dance Facilitator-Training. Antara has just co-produced a CD and written a 36-page booklet about the work, entitled, "Charka Trancen-dance - The Keys to Natural Ecstasy", which is available from her website www.kundalini-dance.com or in local music stores. Antara also has a Transformational Bodywork practice and is available for private sessions. For enquiries phone 66853948. Experiences:
"In the 8 week courses with Antara I healed a lot around my sexuality. I cleared a lot and I received deep insights into my emotional and behavioral patterns. The Kundalini Dance sessions always leave me feeling energized, in a state of clarity with a sense of deep inner peace and connection."
""Working with Antara over the past three years has transformed my life. I now have a deeper awareness of the interconnectedness of what is going on in my physical body with my emotions and my mental state. I found a way to directly connect to source and my inner essence. The Kundalini Dance work has empowered me to walk through the different situations in my life with love. Antara has a wealth of experience and knowledge, the depth of commitment to her own self-healing allows participants to explore themselves on a very deep level. In assisting her in several courses over the years I have witnessed the transformation and activation of many individuals."
""The sacred space created by Antara and her team supported me to reach such depth, I felt like I could truly feel and express every emotion that arose without judgment. The sensation of bringing the energy through every chakra was such an amazing experience and so freeing. Over the period of the course, the mental clarity was phenomenal. The completion of the course had a truly life changing affect, as I had gained the inner strength to make some major life changing decisions for myself and my family."
Since time immemorial, humanity has danced to embody spirit, to know oneness and unity with the source. The ancients danced to rhythmic repetitive beats to reach states of ecstatic trance. They knew the power of breath to reach altered states of consciousness. This would facilitate a shift in focus from the mundane into the realms of the divine, supporting both personal purification and healing. The Sufi mystics of Persia, the Dionysian temple dancers of ancient Greece, the indigenous tribal cultures of Australia, Africa and the Americas, all used dance as a pathway to entering ecstatic states for community and individual transformation. Dancing in the west died off when the Catholic Church banned dancing as a form of worship. Those who danced had a direct link to God and this threatened the role of the priests and ultimately the power of the Church. We have been experiencing an incredible revival in western society of our natural call to dance. When we dance we can feel the freeing of our soul. In the Chakra Dance Journey events, workshops and seminars we apply dance and breath as the tools to access the Love, Truth and Wisdom within. The primary focus of the work is to uncover and release frozen emotional energy and fear held in the body, which is stagnating our life force and creating a loss of power health and vitality. We work with the understanding that the body, mind and spirit are operating as one interrelated bank of conscious information. The body shows us where we are holding onto emotional contraction or fear-based thought forms, through our aches and pains, diseases, and our various body shapes and forms. When we learn to listen to the language of our body we realize, it doesn't lie. Tight shoulders, stiff jaws may be a physical manifestation of withheld anger, which can occur when we don't speak our truth. Love is experience in the body as expansion, fear as contraction. The Eastern psycho-physiological system of "the chakras" is integral to this transformational dance work, as it provides us with essential reference points that enable us to more easily see how our mental and emotional states directly affect our health. Using the chakra system enables us to more easily clear blocks in ourselves. The chakras are like gateways for universal energy to pass into both the physical body and the psyche. All tension and disease in the body is related to some fear-based belief structure or emotional contraction that is imprinted in the chakra or in the cells of its related body parts. When such an emotion is triggered, it blocks the energy flow through the chakra, decreasing the amount of life force available to nourish its inter-connected organs and body parts. This is why our mental and emotional states are so directly connected to our health. The utilisation of dance, breath and sound to clear your chakras is the ultimate in preventative medicine for the 21st century. Sound and movement are ideal ways to clear old emotional energy trapped in the body and the chakras. The breath is central to the Chakra Dance work as our breath is the key to activating states of ecstasy and freedom naturally. The more we breathe the more we receive. Our breath is the current upon which the healing force of spirit travels into our beings. One just needs to learn how to direct it and its magnetism will replenish and rejuvenate us and most importantly purify us.
When you channel light energy into your body and chakras as you breathe and dance your body goes through a spontaneous purification, a release of all that is not in alignment with your higher nature, and we open up the pathways to experiencing states of ecstasy. Ecstasy is a transformational force, which vibrates all of our cells into resonance with the universal field. All our behavioural blueprints are encoded in our bodies' DNA and RNA cells. We can shift our unconscious fear- based behavioural patterns by embodying states of higher consciousness and emotion that are in harmony with the universal field. These states are compassion, love, ecstasy and joy. Fear cannot exist in a body that is vibrating ecstatically. It only knows union. This is the transformational alchemy of ecstasy.
We have so much ancient wisdom in the cells of our bodies and the potential for unleashing it is available to us if we learn to connect to Source and allow our internal wisdom to guide us towards personal healing. So dance to break up those patterns that keep you confined in the illusion of your fears. Dance to shake it up, break it up, and release all that is not of love in your sphere. Your body knows what it needs to do to heal itself, so trust and let your body go with the rhythm of your breath and dance yourself awake. Dance and release yourself from the cultural trance. Dance and heal your soul. Dance and remember who you are. Dance and release that which you are not. Free your body and you free your mind and remember that you are divine.
Over the past twelve years of dancing, exploring and teaching the healing and transformational power of dance I have come to map the journey to reaching states of ecstasy naturally. The dancing path of personal transformation is ecstatic. Recognizing your illusions and moving into truth is joyous. Letting go is fun. Forgiveness is freedom.
About the Author High on Life: Antara comes to Hong Kong to show us all how to mix ecstasy with dance... naturally and legally! Antara and drumming collective Djembe Massive bring dance therapy to uptight city folks who need it.
Dance floor funksters who have popped too many pills, aching office workers that need a good stretch, menopausal ladies and stressed out bankers alike will be delighted to hear that a dance priestess will soon we in town to get us dancing into new realms of ecstasy. Brought out by First Planet (a new artistic venture you will be hearing a lot more about in the coming months,) Antara will be hosting workshops at the Fringe Club, where she will share with us weary Hong Kongers 'The Chakra Journey: A Contemporary Shamanic Transformational Dance Ritual'. Don't be too freaked out. Talking to her down the phone line was enough to dispel any worries of witchcraft. "I studied Dance Therapy at University, but I'm coming at this from a new angle," explains the Australian from her home in Byron Bay. When I asked her to define the role of priestess, she said a priestess is an archetypal expression someone who can facilitate others to directly connect to God, to the source of spirit. I facilitate a space to guide people through breathing, to consciously learn to connect through energy to open up the spirit. "There has been a lot of research lately," she adds, "where people are understanding that we storing more traumatic, non-verbal memories in the body. My work creates a safe space for people to have that releases valve. Worrying images of enraged housewives and traumatized brokers beating at the walls flash into our minds. "It's not a scene of everyone raging out their anger" Antara laughs. "Just to open and up have a release. When you open to that flow, you experience a natural clearing and when that clearing happens the natural follow on from that is ecstasy- meaning an embodied state of cellular bliss." Drawing on ancient energy traditions of India and Egypt, the dancing the dancing will be centered around the chakras, or energy spots on the body. Using the drumming skills of local rhythm kings Djembe Massive, Antara will lead the group through a series of moves. "We do different breath techniques, that activate the energy of the chakra, then I inspire a dance to embody the energy of that chakra," she explains. "The dance of the earth chakra is very solid rooted and strong. It is one of high-powered legs. A lot of anger gets stored in the legs; I inspire people to shake out that anger. Then the second chakra is water it is related to our sexuality. It is very fluid. It gets you flowing in your hips, getting the energy flowing into all the vital reproductive organs. People will go into beautiful expressive dances with that chakra," she adds. Fusing different styles of dance, Antara promises a more complete experience for the city dweller of the new millennium. "From a traditional perspective there isn't any culture that dances every chakra", she explains. "The dance for the base chakra looks very African and if you look at that culture, that whole continent is really dealing with the fundamental issues of survival. They are a very physical people. The dance of the second chakra is like belly dancing. The third chakra, the solar plexus is the warrior dance. You can see it in the Maoris and the ancient Mayans. "What I am inspiring", she concludes "is the dance of the 21st century, the dance of every chakra. We are coming to a point in our evolution where we can embrace our whole being." If you're scared that embracing could be somewhat embarrassing, fret not, blindfolds will be handed out. And any way as Brett Elliot, the man behind first planet emphasizes, "Antara creates a very special space where the most mature thing to be is uninhibited." The enigmatic, and utterly eccentric character, whom you may have spotted fire dancing at the Sevens, remises about his first experience at one of her workshops in Sydney, Australia: "I'd just come from Hong Kong with all that frazzled electrical energy that the city fills you with, and stepped into her workshop the day that I landed. It was a phenomenal experience. And the opportunity to be able to introduce that experience to Hong Kong is really powerful." Taking place alongside First Planet's Launch night at Queens on April 19th, this is their plan to, amongst other things, advance Hong Kongs dance culture. "Looking at it from a sociological perspective" Elliot remarks, millions of young people all over the world are going to clubs and jumping around for 48 hours. The central question is 'what's going on!' In all that thrashing, I think what people are trying to do is clear all the static madness from their week, and well, trying to heal themselves".
There will be a free introduction to the Chakra Journey on April 19th, and the 8-hour workshop will take place April 21st and April 28th from 10am-5pm, $1500, and $2500 with a private session. Fringe Club Studio, 2 Lower Albert Rd, Central. A special bilingual (English and Cantonese) 3 day workshop, comprising a three day nine hour journey on April 23,24 &27($1800). Private sessions also available. For info and bookings contact Brett at 9329-9693, www.firstplanet.netk 
By AntaraSince time immemorial humanity has danced to rhythmic repetitive beats and ecstatically trance danced to awaken the divine source within. The Sufi mystics of Persia, the Dionysian temple dancers of Ancient Greece, the Tantrics of India and most indigenous cultures across the globe all knew that movement of body and breath with intention through music is a pathway to cathartic healing, divine alignment and personal realization. In the early churches of Europe, Christian worship included dance, which was outlawed and banned. People have always danced is a constrained social context to celebrate. Into the 20th century the ancient art of sacred dance has been reduced to a silent hum in the frenzy of industrial development. The Dionysian spirit of the 60's and innovations in technology have reactivated ecstatic dance culture worldwide arising from the ashes of 'live to work' industrialization. Ecstatic Dance Culture You have been dancing for hoursÉ deep in the night. Suddenly your dance is effortless as you become filled with boundless energy and light. There are no more edges you begin to melt into an ocean of light; you have a sense of unity with everyone on the dance floor. You are in ecstasy. Ecstasy is a transformational force, which vibrates all cells into resonance with the universal field. Fear cannot exist in a body that is vibrating ecstatically; it only knows union. As all thoughts and actions vibrate into this frequency it teaches us what it is to be live and be in alignment with the universal laws of love. Our body is composed of a series of energy centers, called chakras, grounded in the body with sensation inducing glands, interlinked electrically by the nervous system, activated by circulation, connecting the inner world with the outer. The cells of our bodies and our subtle energy system, particularly our chakras, carry all the thought forms, beliefs and memories. Our deepest traumas our greatest times of elation, the memories of our unique gifts, and our life purpose are all stored in the living breathing library of our physical and subtle bodies. Our chakras are gateways to access the behavioral blue print encoded in the cells of our bodies. We can shift our unconscious patterns by embodying states of consciousness and emotion that are in harmony with the Universal field. These states are compassion, love, ecstasy and joy. This is what we call the alchemy of ecstasy.
Dancing breathing and sounding to clear your chakras is the ultimate in preventative medicine for the 21st Century. Sound is a great way to clear old emotional imprints trapped in the body and the chakras. By breathing into the blocked area and allowing the core sound out, you can release the emotional energy that is blocking the flow of energy in your daily life. There is no need to go into emotional catharsis and get lost in the past pain again. Just let the core sound out and it will clear.
If you are a person who loves to dance, a little knowledge about breath chakras, energy work and the power of prayer and focused intention can enhance the transformational depth of your all night dance experience; moving beyond the realms of recreation into the realms of shamanic transformational rite. We have so much ancient wisdom in the cells of our bodies and the potential for unleashing it is available to us if we learn to connect to source and allow our internal wisdom to guide us towards personal healing.
So dance to break up those patterns that keep you in fear. Dance to break free of the confines of personal cultural ego definitions. Dance and heal your soul. Dance to express your deepest secrets. By expressing shadow aspects of self, you bring them into the loving embrace of your self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is not just a mental concept; it is the vibration that integrates neglected or restricted areas of self into the field of unconditional love. Acceptance makes you whole. Dance and remember who you are. Over the past twelve years of dancing, exploring and teaching the healing and transformational power of dance I have come to map the journey to reaching states of ecstasy naturally. The dancing path of personal transformation is ecstatic.
Recognizing you illusions and moving into truth is joyous. Antara is a dance movement therapist/shamanic energy healer/ and ritual dance performer, producer and facilitator of awakening events and seminars.
Kundalini
Dance Kundalini Dance is a unique form of ecstatic dance developed and taught by dance therapist/healer, Antara Decker, world wide for over a decade. Here Antara explains how this unique form of movement maintains health and vitality.
Kundalini is an ancient Sanskrit word used to describe an innate energy found in every human being. It is located in the sacrum, at the base of the spine and unless cultivated, it remains dormant. Kundalini is also known as ‘prana’, which means a highly potent form of “life force”. The ancient Indian yogic mystics referred to Kundalini as Shakti, the divine feminine energy within us, which when cultivated was the key to self-realisation, health and longevity. Kundalini Dance is essentially an ecstatic dance journey through the chakras. It combines dance movement with rhythmic pranic breathing techniques to express and purify the energy of each chakra. Rhythmic pranic breath quiets the thinking mind, synchronises brain waves and induces light states of trance conducive to healing and transformation. When the breath is incorporated with free movement it is known to shift stagnant and repressed energy and thought forms that have been held in the mind-body system. When you open the body, surrender and let go of emotional stress and tension and give it up in the dance, it creates an opening, a sense of expansion and inner peace This encourages energy flow to the organs and body parts that each chakras governs, promoting wellbeing and feelings of ecstatic union with source. Ecstasy is a timeless, ego-less state of no-mind where our inherent sense of separation dissolves and we feel at one with the whole universe. When we are ecstatic we are whole in body, mind and soul. Emotional Integration One of the underlying principles of Kundalini Dance is that the mind, body and spirit are interconnected. Thought patterns and emotions are initiated and stored not only in our brains, but also within the cells of our bodies, our organs and our (chakra) energy system. Within our cells we hold the imprints of all that we have ever experienced in this life. Unexpressed or un-integrated experiences carry strong mental and emotional energy that can become locked in the body as tension, resistance and body armoring. Emotions are like water they need to flow. When they flow through the pathways of our energy system, they automatically bring balance and harmony. An emotion that is blocked or denied stagnates the life force and blocks our energy system, impeding the flow of life force into the various body systems and organs causing gradual deterioration and eventually disease. This is why our emotions are so connected to our health. The more you clear your mind-body system of dense, emotional energies, the more universal energy can flow in. On a physical level, that means more life force energy can flow into the organs to create health and vitality. On a spiritual and emotional level, this means freeing yourself of the past and feeling lighter and becoming more present. Emotional clearing and Integration can take place by allowing feelings to arise with acceptance and observation – without identifying or intellectualising them. We spend our lives resisting and judging what is, thinking we will be happy when it all looks like an idea of perfection that we have in our mind. Through our resistance to what is, we create our own suffering. Unconditional acceptance of what is, is transformative, spontaneously and instantly. When we unconditionally accept what arises we can directly experience the transformative energy of love because acceptance and love are one. Any time that we judge our feelings, we contract, literally, in body, mind and heart. Every time we contract there is an opportunity for expansion. Acceptance is the path of expansion as it cultivates our capacity to except all experiences, even the painful ones, and when acceptance is the path love and happiness are the inevitable destination. Direct experience Fear-based emotions, like sadness, grief, anger, jealousy or depression, are experienced in the body as contraction. Love, on the other hand, is experienced as expansion. Allow your inhalation to fill the space where you feel the contraction, letting go on the exhalation. Watching, accepting, yet not identifying with the ever-changing emotional wave, with the story, with the constant chatter of our mind looping in the past and the future. Observing ourselves we remember that we are the watcher not what we are watching. If you are not what you are watching, who are you? I find using my breath is a powerful tool to bring me back into this present moment; it is when I rest in the now that I find the inner peace to accept all my experiences regardless of appearances. The breath will help me shift my negative emotions and ground my attention back into the truth of love. Giving me the clarity to see my own limitations, look at what I am creating and change my perceptions in accordance to truth. The Power of Breath The breath has the power to affect us deeply, and is a powerful tool for physical rejuvenation, healing and transformation. Breath carries what has been known in Eastern philosophies as prana or chi: vital universal life force. The science of harnessing prana is central to the Kundalini Dance work, which once mastered, is the key to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. The key to receiving and maximising pranic energy is how we intend to focus our breath because we all know that energy flows where attention goes. Pranic Breathing directs both earth energy and universal energy up and down the central energy channel, and we direct it out through the specific chakra we are activating or purifying. Kundalini – shakti is synonymous with earth energy and can be accessed through raising this up through the central energy channel. Breath is like the wind: it clears away the debris, it uncovers layers of resistance until old wounds are revealed for healing. Emotions are simple energy in motion — the breath is an incredible purifier as it frees up stagnant emotional energy and moves it through the body to be released. It is through the breath that we can let go of stress, anger, grief, fear and negativity. Breath is the essence of life; conscious breathing opens the body and awakens the mind. Every inhalation is an inspiration of spirit and when we are inspired with spirit we are passionate, vibrant, creative, healthy and ecstatically connected to all of life. I find breathing into my heart one of the most direct ways to make contact with my true essence. When I breathe into my heart I become fully present to love and directly experience my true nature as love. I feel whole and happy when I breathe into my heart, I can accept all as well and be at peace. I am in love with myself and know that I need nothing outside myself to be whole and happy. When I am feeling emotionally turbulent or stuck in a negative emotional or mental loop, I find breathing into my heart will always bring me back home to truth. The practice of breathing into my heart chakra, coupled by my intention to embody love, has become my main daily spiritual practice. I have shared this tool with groups of people, regularly for the past decade and it never ceases to amaze me at its instant effectiveness, in creating happy smiling faces and beaming hearts. As a practical tool it is very simple. Direct Experience – The Love Breath Place your attention in your heart chakra, which is in the centre of your chest, and make an intention to experience your true nature. Softly and effortlessly sip your breath in through pursed lips, breathing rhythmically and evenly, for about two seconds in and two seconds out. Feel your breath filling up your lungs, expanding your chest as you as you raise energy up through your central energy channel and out through your heart chakra. On every exhalation release a soft ‘aah’ sound, to clear any stagnant emotional energy that might be trapped in your heart area. The more you clear the more space you create for the love within to expand. We do not try and fix or change what arises but simply recognise and accept all our experiences, beliefs and emotions. In this act of breathing into your heart, you are tapping into the source of love. Let this love that you are embrace all expressions of your consciousness and breathe out love…aah. Dancing Through the Chakras Kundalini Dance work is based around the universal map of the seven chakras, the main centres of energy and consciousness in the body. The chakras touch deeply into the core of whom we are, how we perceive and express ourselves in the world. Issues relating to survival, relationship, sexuality, personal power, career, life-purpose, creativity, communication and spiritual dimensions are all expressed through the chakras. The chakras are a universal map that when explored can lead to us to greater personal awareness, healing and empowerment. The chakras are located vertically and sequentially along our spine. Ancient wisdom traditions teach that the chakras are centres of energetic and spiritual information, triggering specific emotions, mental or behavioral states, as well as channeling life force into the vital organs and body system that each chakra governs. Physiologically each chakra is also connected to an endocrine gland, a physical organ and a bodily function. The location of each chakra corresponds to the location of a neuronal plexus, a network of cells dense with neuropeptide transmitters and electrical and chemical activity that receive, process, and distribute specific information from and to the rest of the body mind. For example, the peptides most active at the solar plexus regulate digestion. Working with the chakras through rhythmic breath and dance movement expression helps to balance the chakra system as a whole. Each chakra inspires a totally different style of movement, and focuses on opening different body parts. For example, dancing the sex chakra inspires a fluid dance; it is like water, sensual and flowing, and focuses on opening the hips and pelvis, circling and spiraling, creating an energetic lubricant that opens up the whole body. Each chakra carries the blue print of all our life experiences; they carry the programs at the core of our sub-conscious. Bringing the feeling content of their energies through dance helps bring awareness and insight into those deep impulses and patterns that run our lives. Each chakra has its own rhythmic breath sequence that when incorporated with movement will activate and potentialise the specific aspects of consciousness relating to that chakra. Pranic breathing into the heart chakra fills you with feelings of unconditional love and joy, connecting you deeply into your essence. Similarly pranic breathing into the solar plexus chakra creates an expanded sense of personal power, vitality and confidence. As the chakras hold both the positive and negative experiences of our lives, pranic chakra breathing also supports the spontaneous clearing and purification of old stagnant emotional energies out of the chakras and their associated organs. On a physical level this allows more life force to flow into the different body systems, balancing the energy flow and revitalising and rejuvenating the associated physical organs, creating more health and vitality. For example, contacting and releasing grief and sadness out of the heart and lungs and the musculature around the upper chest and back, will eventually strengthen the respiratory system and the physical heart. Healing disease takes ongoing self-maintenance and discipline yet it possible if you are willing to get to the core issues around the dis-ease. One example of this concerns a middle aged woman who attended one of my weekend workshops, essentially motivated by her history of digestive problems and upper abdominal pain. Whilst working on her solar plexus, the woman accessed a deep sense of repressed anger she felt toward her ex-husband. She experiened immediate relief from chronic pain after the session and eight weeks later reported her digestive problems were gone. This is a direct example of how our emotions are connected to our health. Participants of Kundalini Dance workshops and events report improvements in their physical vitality, health and energy levels; others claim heightened creativity and improved libido. Dancing through the chakras is the exploration of your core energetic patterning, inspiring a dance of release, a dance of elemental balance and beauty, a dance of insight, a dance of self-healing and transformation, a dance of ecstatic celebration. The Alchemy of Ecstasy All the mystics and spiritual teachers and spiritual traditions and practices inspire us to “know thy self” as the ultimate goal to achieve sustaining happiness. They all have the same central theme that in order to experience the true self we need to silence the constant chatter of the mind that keeps us held in the past and in the future. Ecstatic dance, like meditation is a vehicle to move you into a state of no mind - a very deep inner stillness. We call it being in the zone: that place of inner silence where we commune with the source. In the zone we remember that consciousness is all there is. We become intimate with our true nature. To dance ecstatically requires you to let go of form and linear mental control and surrender to a sense of direction that comes deep from within. To be consumed by a longing to shed the layers that keep you separate, release the past and dive deeply into the sea of love within. There we receive the gift the gift of knowing the true self, where we are already perfect, whole in this moment, now. Kundalini Dance is a contemporary personal cultivation practice, drawing on ancient ways and wisdom, designed for the accelerated times we live in. Once you remember how to plug in, activate and clear your own body mind system, it is something that comes very naturally, we all have an energy body and it is our birthright to remember how to work with it, and empower ourselves to take our physical, mental, spiritual and emotional health into our own hands. Any body can do this practice; every body was born to dance. This is an invitation for you to come and Kundalini Dance, and experience the ecstasy, pure joy and radiant health that come with a clear energy channel.
Antara Decker has been sharing the Kundalini Dance work internationally over the past 12 years. In 2004 she has planned courses, workshops, retreats and teacher trainings events in Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay and the Gold Coast. For more info about the work or her teaching schedule or CD/Booklet go to www.kundalini-dance.com or email antara@kundalini-dance.com or phone 0421-160841. |
by Antara
By Claire Tyrrell