At the historic Sweet’s Ballroom in Oakland, CA, Philip Novotny is bringing dancers and musicians into a magical interplay. He wends his way through the crowd, improvising moves with the dancers, gesturing an idea toward the musicians, speaking through a headset mic. “Where does your body go as you allow yourself to move with more creativity?” he says, and as dancers respond with their bodies, the musicians answer through notes and rhythm.
Novotny is the mastermind behind these “Yum” sessions, one of many musical collectives experimenting with a new form of ecstatic dance to live music. He started these gatherings four years ago at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, and views them as a way to forge trust and connection among everyone in the dance space. Inspired by the philosophies of Soul Motion, 5Rhythms©, and Contact Improvisation, these ecstatic movement sessions use improvised, multi-genre music as the bridge to build trust. “I am called and inspired to ‘hold space’ for an energetic field of people,” says Novotny—“a space that invites safety, mindfulness, compassion, community, and group consciousness.”
Yum sessions are part of an emerging trend in which a facilitator actively connects the band and the dancers. It’s a trend with roots in the ancient tradition of dance to live music that’s going strong in clubs and rock concerts worldwide. To add to the mix, musicians are showing up at contact jams, yoga classes, and somatics sessions, bringing a different energy than that of recorded sound. But something new is happening through modalities like Yum sessions, a fresh approach that’s also emerged in Micheline Berry’s Zen Dancing, and Timo Beckwith’s dances with World Wind. The person in the crowd wearing the mic is creating a new jam-band hybrid, a cousin to the 5Rhythms model of dance facilitation.
In this type of dance experience, there are no spectators—everyone takes part. Novotny emphasizes the inclusion of each person in the room, and chose the name “Yum” because of its many positive associations. He later learned from a friend that the similar sound “yam” is the mantra associated with the heart chakra, connecting body, mind, and spirit—the place where compassion and universal love are held.
Later on in the Yum session, the energy in the room begins to come down. It’s as if the experience has peaked, and everyone needs to catch a collective breath. “Let’s savor the subtleties of our body sensations…and drink in this peace,” Novotny says through his mic, and, almost as one, dancers and musicians find a slower pace.
Yum guitarist Toan Chau appreciates the give and take. “The Yum sessions are our way of communicating our spontaneous musical ideas to the listeners and dancers,” he says. “The musicians are trying to be aware of when and how to direct the energy in the room and reacting to the surroundings and being directed by the facilitator all at the same time. It’s a wonderful experience when the musicians and dancers feed off each other and become one huge consciousness.”
Yum musicians are often coming together for the first time, creating rotating ensembles and absorbing local musicians when the band travels. Likewise, many of the dancers in a session are also new to one another. Novotny views this lack of familiarity as a useful tool that puts everyone into a space of expanded sensitivity. “It’s a journey of the unscripted,” he says, “a practice of being fully alive with artistic expression and having no direction except presence and unity with self and other. Nothing is pre-designed.”
Another approach to the beguiling mix of facilitated dance and live music is Zen Dancing, which brings a meditative twist to the journey. In 1995, yoga teacher and filmmaker Micheline Berry and musician Craig Kohland developed this modality, an ecstatic dance and meditation practice with live world music and drumming. Zen dancers gather in a beautiful candlelit space adorned with flowers and eco-altars, where they’re joined by The Shaman’s Dream World Groove Ensemble. As facilitator, Berry allows the inspiration and embodiment of her own dance, along with the deep rhythms and evocative melodies, to invite each person’s dancing meditation to emerge. “Dance teaches us that as we learn to move fluidly and freely, we learn to live our lives more fluidly and to transform the stresses of daily living,” says Berry.
The musicians of Shaman’s Dream create the music for each journey through a shared connection with the dancers in the room. “A deep listening to oneself, to the other musicians, to the environment, and to the dancers is crucial,” says Kohland. “This approach allows the music to be open to follow the flow of the moment, leaving room for spirit to be present.”
Shaman’s Dream is a true ensemble band where players take turns leading or supporting. With music that ranges from ambient to funk, from West to North African, from Balinese to Middle Eastern, they draw on tribal roots that exude the energy of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Fueled by a sense of ancient ritual celebration, the band creates a unity that extends beyond each musician to every person in the room.
Dancer Kira Jones experienced this powerful unity at another live music and dance event, the Ojai Full Moon Ecstatic Dance with the band World Wind. Led by Timo Beckwith, the group works with trance vocals, African harp, shruti box, flutes, violin, and more. Its monthly full-moon dances are held in the magnificent Council House at the Ojai Foundation, where the view through large glass doors leads to the Ojai Valley and Topa Topa Mountains. The circular design of the house is based on sacred geometry and crop circles, and the sprung wood floor is heated from below. For dancers and musicians alike, the space is an enchanted setting in which joy and play come alive through one improvised moment after the next.
“World Wind musically and energetically conjured up a magical ‘dancespace’ at the Ojai Foundation’s Council House,” says Jones. “The wonderful ability of the musicians to improv with each other and be responsive to the dancers’ energy created a unique, entrancing beat and melody, call and response with our bodies and our voices.”
Beckwith of World Wind values the reciprocity between musicians and dancers. “We might steer the ship, but the ship is also steering us,” he observes. “As we respond to the dancers, it becomes one big, beautiful, living, breathing circle of energy.” He describes the poetry of the full-moon dance in its final moments: “As the last note of music brings the dancers to stillness, their voices erupt en masse. A huge shimmering column of harmonious, blissful sound rises straight through the living roof of the Council House. It swirls out into the night as the light of the moon bounces off the Topa Topa Mountains across the valley and time seems to stop, holding us all in a vibrating state of connection. We are connecting with ourselves in a very deep and healing way. It’s ancient, it’s tribal, and it’s the ultimate reward for musicians who are nourished and inspired by the sense of connection.”
Yum Session
http://www.facebook.com/pages/YUM-Session/213402776259?v=wall&ref=ts
and
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1069003400&ref=ts
Shaman’s Dream
www.shamansdreammusic.com
Reprinted with permission from conscious dancer | summer 2010
For more details about the COuncil House at the Ojai Foundation: http://hopedance.org/home/housing-news/1796-council-house
