Using Dance in Witchcraft

[Xiao Rong]

Hey friends! Pallando's post on Beats Antique inspired me to start this topic. For the past few years I've been studying belly dance with a local group, which I've been absolutely loving! That's been really getting me to explore more kinesthetic forms of magic and incorporating simple dance into group ritual with my coven. I also recently attended a Sacred Belly Dance workshop and learned some other really cool things, like elemental associations of certain dance moves, how to raise ecstatic energy using some dance moves, etc. I feel like my belly dance (though amateurish at best) has brought me closer to Aphrodite. I've also thought of choreographing some devotional dances to certain deities I work with, such as Persephone. (I can write about these things in greater depth at some later point, but I wanted to open up the discussion first!)

Has anyone else been using dance in their witchcraft or rituals? I'd love to learn more!

Cheers,
Xiao

[planewalker]

I can tell you a way I've used it. My wife didn't want to be instructed in the craft but it intrigued her and she was sometimes part of my ritual and healing work. She can dance your socks of, if your watching her. Just flat out a natural at it. If you'll pardon the example - Like a snake hypnotizes it's prey. That let me put people in trance to work out psychological issues. Dance is a splendid form of communication. If you don't believe me, go watch a high school dance.

[Firebird]

I feel the Spiral dance is a very important aspect of what we believe.
Well, I'm presuming we all believe in some sort of return and the spiral dance mimics that action.
You spiral in, you're coming into life...you spiral out, you're going into death...your sprial in, you're coming into life... you spiral out, you're going into death...you spiral in, you're coming into life.
It's a dance about the double helix which is also DNA. Life. And eternity.
It's also important to look into the eyes of the person you are passing, there you connect on a deep level sharing this life and death dance we all must journey on. We also connect with others ancestors as well as our own ancestors by seeing this unbroken chain though the eyes that have seen the eyes that have seen the eyes, etc...
Bb, Firebird

[planewalker]

I don't dance well enough to know for sure, but extrapolating from marshal arts, if you don't have a fixed point of reference and coordinate your gaze to it you get dizzy and fall on your @$$. Maybe that speaks to keeping a grounded, well integrated personality.

[nightshroud]

Hmm I was thinking on this same subject on could dancing bring me closer to Gaia.

[YanaKhan]

I was once told (I think I was told, but I could have read it somewhere, I'm not sure) that dancing is a way of reaching gnosys (that was back when I was studying Chaos magick), so I tried it, but it didn't work for me. On the other hand, I found it to be a great meditation when nothing else is working to clear my mind. I concentrate on the moves and the thoughts just fly away.

[Shekinah]

Motion attributes mechanical expression and dynamics to our imagery. We see this in the wild dance of the Shaman and in the nodding of the Jew in prayer. In occult practice such as remote viewing and projection we find it potentiating to physically go through the motions of whatever it is we are envisioning. In martial arts and Chi Gong it is the release of the energy. Dance, drumming, chanting and exaggerated gestures is a very important part of Wicca and Witchcraft energy directing. The more dynamic we are in our Circle the more profound experiences we might expect.

[Deerstep]

Well...
A Dine friend of mine taught me a rain dance once, when I was a kid. Ever since, I can't help but dance it during very heavy thunderstorms, and sometimes just during light drizzles. It's probably my favorite rite because it's just so simple and so powerful to me. What's better than dancing in puddles barefoot with the sky cracking overhead?

[Ophelia]

As someone who dances for their career, I can vouch for the massive amount of energy that is created when one can let go of one's inhibitions and just dance their heart out. You don't need to be professionally trained, although feeling like you're "doing it right" often helps with dropping inhibitions. This energy could be used to charge a ritual or spell, to get the attention of a spirit or deity, to reach a state of trance (sometimes call "flow state"), to put an audience in a state of trance, and much more.