Dancing has been around for a very long time. There are cave paintings depicting dancers in the 10,000-year-old Bhimbetka rock shelters of India; murals at the 4,000-year-old Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete show dancers leaping over bulls. Turning our gaze from our oldest ancestors to the newest of us, we find something interesting. Researchers have found that babies as young as five months old possess an instinctual, biological predisposition to move in time to music.
Perhaps dancing is our first language. It’s innate, as natural to us as breathing.
We dance in many ways and for different reasons. Countless generations of K’ómoks and Kwakwaka’wakw people have danced (and continue to dance) in the Comox Valley. When settlers arrived, they held dances in the barns and halls they built, and later, in bars and nightclubs. Today, the Valley is home to an abundance of dance schools and troupes, along with plenty of social opportunities for drinking and dancing.
But for many years, there was no safe local space where people of all ages could come together and dance uninhibitedly, away from the foggy haze of the bar scene.
Enter Dance Temple Comox Valley. Inspired by a group on Saltspring Island, Dance Temple began in the spring of 2018 as a small gathering of about 15 close friends who wanted to explore ecstatic dance, a drug- and alcohol-free way to elicit a euphoric, peak experience.
Over time, the group grew; it’s currently overseen by a “Core Team” made up of Patty, River, Aaron, and Mark. We host a weekly Sunday-morning Dance Temple for all ages at the Cumberland Cultural Centre during winter and spring; it moves to the beautiful Innisfree Farm in Royston during the summer and fall. And every Wednesday evening, at Royston’s Fallen Alders Community Hall, there’s Alchemy, an adults-only gathering steered by a slightly different crew with the same dedication to ecstatic dance.
Each session is led by a facilitator (often with DJ skills) who guides attendees on a 90-minute musical journey of modern music, the flavour of which varies depending on the facilitator. There is no pressure to dance: some people come just to lie there, take in the music, and absorb the energy of the space. “It’s a way to have fun, connect with community, make new friends, and even heal,” says Patty. “Children and families are very welcome! People regularly report how coming here has become a highlight of their week.”
“You don’t have to be a ‘good’ dancer. Just show up and move in whatever way feels good. It’s such good medicine!”
The goal is to create a space that welcomes the expression of emotions and allows people to move however their bodies want to move. At Dance Temple events, everyone can express themselves and have fun, explains Aaron. “People can be with themselves or interact consensually with others, based on a set of agreements that include silence on the dance floor, no phones or photography, and, of course, no drugs or alcohol.”
Ecstatic dance has become wildly popular, not just in the Comox Valley, but elsewhere on Vancouver Island. “People of all ages come to shake it out and release. It’s beautiful to witness,” says River, who has been facilitating free-form dance in the Comox Valley for 14 years. “You don’t have to be a ‘good’ dancer. Just show up and move in whatever way feels good. It’s such good medicine!”
We look forward to welcoming you, as you are, to our community and the dance floor.
