✤ Combine your unique skill set with our potent movement facilitation tools designed to build community and get dancers into their bodies ✤

→ Have you ever attended an Ecstatic Dance and wondered how the cohesive and potent feeling of community is created?

→  Have you been running conscious dance events but feel that there is  something missing or that your dancers are wanting something more?

→  Do you possess mad leadership skills but lack the embodiment training  you need to feel confident holding the beginning and end of the dance?

→ Join us and 20 fellow Conscious Dance Facilitators in training on this exciting new adventure!

PROGRAM

This 9-module training will take place over a period of  5 weeks. We will come together each Sunday and Wednesday for 3 hours. Training begins on Sunday September 26 and ends on Sunday October 24. 

✤ Central European Time (UTC+2) 18:00-21:00 (Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin)

✤ Western European Time (UTC+1) 17:00-20:00 (London, Lisbon)

✤ Eastern Standard Time (UTC-4) 12:00-15:00 (New York, Montréal)

✤ Pacific Standard Time (UTC-7) 9:00-12:00 (Los Angeles, Vancouver) 

All sessions will be recorded and released with 24 hours to allow participants to make up any missed sessions and stay on track with content and assignments. 

9 MODULES

What sets conscious dance events apart from a regular dance party or an exercise class? Where parties offer community and dance classes offer physical conditioning, neither offers a full spectrum experience where all of what it is to be human is welcomed. This magical quality of  Ecstatic & conscious dance is created in large part by the person who facilitates the dance. This role is called by many names: "Ceremony  Leader", "Space Holder" or "Dance facilitator". Regardless of the name, the role is the same: they are the one who guides the dancers into a  musical set in an embodied way and who is there at the end to assist dancers in grounding and integrating their journey. 

Our training  is delivered in 9 modules which build upon each other. Our curriculum  teaches you to combine the skills you already possess as a leader with somatic/movement principles. 

✤ 01 - EMBODIMENT (Sun Sept 26)

We will: 

→ Explore the science behind dance/movement and the pychosomatic intersection between body and mind. 

→ Learn why dance and music are so effective at creating meaningful community experiences and how to harness their potential. 

→ Use visualization to make explicit our individual leadership skill-set and  make a plan of how to meld them with embodiment practices.  

✤ 02 - CONTAINMENT (Wed Sept 29) 

We will: 

→ Explore what your role as facilitator is from the moment you walk into a venue until you walked back out into the street again.

→ Move  from the theoretical into the practical by discussing what is necessary  to contain the spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual space  of a dance event. 

→ Discuss no-nonsense ways to deal with everyday joys and struggles which are common in conscious dance enviroments. (an example: How to get people to not talk!)  

✤ 03 - BODY EXPLORATION  (Sun Oct 3) 

We will: 

→ Learn the principles of Facilitation Homebase, the foundation you can return to time and time again. 

→ Begin to explore DTM's 5 Pathways starting with Body Exploration, the most straightforward of all the pathways. 

→ Deliver  tips and tricks to explicitly draws attention to body parts, movements,  sensations, impulses. In other words to "get dancers into the body".

✤ 04 - PSYCHOSOMATIC EXPLORATION (Wed Oct 6) 

We will: 

→ Explore the second of the 5 pathways which uses the entry points of emotions  and emotional responses/experiences to build a bridge between body and mind. 

→ Discover how to use shared human experiences to encourage connection, coherence and community. 

→ Apply the principles of feeling our emotional "feelings" within the body as  physical sensations, postures, and movements, the foundation of embodiment.

✤ 05 - RITUALIZATION (Sun Oct 10) 

We will: 

→ Demystify the base meaning of the word "ritual" and reveal how its essence is simply to make the ordinary extraordinary! 

→ Model  the use of gestures, words, actions, and/or objects within sequences to  give it meaning and evoke a connection to something beyond our  individual selves. 

→ Get real about how to ritualize without using religion, dogma, or resorting to appropriation.  

✤ 06 - SOCIAL ACTIVATION (Wed Oct 13) 

We will: 

→ Discuss humanity's need for social activation, to set aside individuality and  move collectively from passive to active in confronting oppression and  encouraging connection. 

→ Explore the uncomfortable side of social activation; encouraging dancers to take a stand; and the comfortable  side, encouraging connection, diads/triads/pods, and play! 

→ Get real about our role as community leaders in encouraging collective action while staying non-political.  

✤ 07 - VISUALIZATION (Sun Oct 17)

We will: 

→ Discover the magic of the final of the DTM's 5 pathways, which taps into the  imagination where we move beyond time, space, and ability and are limitless! 

→ Demonstrate visualization techniques that encourage  dancers to take what they have visualized and translate it into the  physical body through movement. 

→ Explain how to create just enough  structure to ignite the imagination but no more, allowing the dancer's  to fill in as many of the blanks as possible.

✤ 08 - INTEGRATION (Wed Oct 20)

We will: 

→ Integrate the information already delivered, practice our skills, and collaborate  with each other, and go over core principles not yet covered. 

→ Speak  with special guests who have years of experience holding dance space;  creating safe and fruitful containers for movement practices. 

→ Do a "group harvest" so that all students have an opportunity to share ecstatic and conscious dance facilitation ideas.  

✤ 9 - ONWARD (Sun Oct 24)

We will: 

→ Offer you our final top tips and words of wisdom! 

→ Give you a chance to ask the questions which have been left unanswered. 

→ And end our time together with our very own graduation ritual as you leave us as the first cohort of DTM facilitators ♡  

We will divide our 3-hour sessions between lectures on the day's topic, dance and movement practices, breaking into small groups for discussion and assignments, while making sure there is a little time each day for Q&A. You will receive a 100+ page professional manual and workbook  which is filled with practical and theoretical information as well as spaces to record all your ideas and those of your cohorts. You will leave this course feeling confident that you can facilitate many dances without running out of ideas!  

YOUR TEACHER

✤ BERNICE RAABIS (Founder of  Dance the Medicine)

While now an experienced teacher of Ecstatic Dance Leaders, Bernice began humbly in a small dance studio nestled in the Kootenay Mountains of Western Canada. Here she ran bi-weekly events for over 8 years; Dance Church, a multi-generational Sunday morning dance, and Dance The Medicine, a conscious dance class based on Soul Motion, Movement-based Expressive Arts and Somatic Therapy. By 2016 Bernice was working beyond her local community, co-founded Ecstatic Dance International and began hosting successful trainings and events in Amsterdam, Guatemala and Portugal. In addition to having DJed many Ecstatic Dances around the globe, she was also at the helm of our hugely popular Ecstatic DJ Conference this past May, gathering 200+ aspiring and professional DJs from all over the world. She is on a mission to infect the world with dance in hopes that everyone, everywhere, will one day have a place to dance in community.  

YOUR HOST  

✤ RENÉE LACROIX (Founder of Ecstatic Dance UK)

French-Canadian by birth and Londoner by adoption, Renée is a passion-led serial entrepreneur. She started businesses in the fashion and food industry before launching Ecstatic Dance UK in London. After encountering Buddhism and establishing a daily meditation practice, she discovered conscious dancing in 2015 through 5Rhythms.  In addition to being an Ecstatic Dance organiser and facilitator, she also found her vocation through DJing. Her Sunday morning dances have been an instant success, gathering 100+ dancers weekly. During lockdown, she learned how to livestream music and quickly established a highly attended dance on Zoom before launching outdoor silent disco-style dances in the park and leading two sold-out retreats this summer. Her vision is to make Ecstatic Dance more accessible and mainstream by hosting welcoming and inclusive events that appeal to a wider audience.  

SUPPORT TEAM & SPECIAL GUESTS

✤ Alex Sevilla (Ecstatic Dance Madrid)

✤ Esta Polyesta (Ecstatic Dance Netherlands & Goa)

✤ Mira Khanya (Movement Medicine)

✤ Ajay Rajani (5Rhythms)

✤ Iona McNeil (London, UK)

✤ Cristina Ciobanu (Montréal, Canada)

2 PATHWAYS

✤ PATH A: THE DEDICATED FACILITATOR - €695

     → The full experience: live classes, break-out groups and Q&A sessions

     → 9 modules of content (total class time 27 hours)

     → 100-page manual including weekly assignments, worksheets & resources

     → Full access to the recordings (released 24 hours after each class)

     → A designated Facebook group to continue weekly discussions and share resources with your classmates

     → A graduation certificate & goodies sent by mail

     → A support network of 20 fellow Embodied Facilitators

Who is this path for?

      →  Those who want a cohort to learn with and keep as colleagues for the years to come

      →  Those who learn better in groups

      →  Those whose schedule will fit well with the hours of the live training

      →  Those who want to be able to interact with teachers and other students

✤ PATH B: THE INDEPENDENT FACILITATOR - €495

      →  Full access to the recordings (released 24 hours after each class)

      →  9 modules of content (total video time 22 hours)

      →  180-page manual including weekly assignments, worksheets & resources

Who is this path for?

      →  Those who prefer to learn at their own pace

      →  Those who learn better independently

      →  Those whose schedule does not fit well with the hours of the live training (yes Aussies & Kiwis, we hear you!)

      →  Those with limited financial means

Q&A

→ Will I receive a certification? Yes, only those enrolled on Path A will be certified and receive a certificate by mail. We do not certify those on Path B as we have no way of knowing whether they completed the course and homeworks.

→ Will this training cover DJing? No, this is exclusively a Facilitator training. But we DO offer a DJ Training & a large collection of on-demand videos.

→ For how long will the recordings be available? The videos will be available for you to watch for a period of 180 days after the training ends.

→ I'm not sure which path is right for me. Can you advise me? Absolutely. Simply send us a message or email us: bernice@dancethemedicine.com.

→ What's your cancellation policy? In case of cancellation from your side, we don't offer any refunds, no matter the reason. 

TESTIMONIALS FROM OUR GRADUATES

"This training is for the big visionaries, event organizers, and executives of dance programs out there. It takes you through step by step how to create an Ecstatic Dance event. The best part is you’re surrounding by super rad people who truly believe in the vision as much as you do; and who feel alive in sharing that vision. I feel absolutely honoured to be a part of this amazing group as of dancers, organizers, and beautiful human beings. Showing up with my whole heart, it changed me and I feel like I’ve grown a lot."

→ Carol Boccaccio - Canada

"Dance the Medicine prepared me with the tools to grow as an Ecstatic Dance leader and warrior! The container held, even online, was potent and full of space to explore the building blocks for the foundation of my dance. It was an honor to be apart of this community of conscious dance leaders. I now feel fully equipped to go out and infect my communities with the medicine of Dance! 

→ Elissa Eskridge - Costa Rica

"This online training has come in the right time, just when I felt the call to share the awesomeness of conscious dance with my people, after such a crazy year. I am amazed by the connections I have made during this training and the quality of its content which was more than I expected."

→ Dounia Acef - Morocco

"Bernice, Renée and the DTM team are a knowledgable, grounded and experienced group of teachers.  They REALLY care about their students and it's obvious when you experience the quality of the production and information they share. They attract a huge variety of students and the opportunity to network during the course is high."

→ Rafaél Suvaii - Canada

"Through powerful visualization exercises, sharing of invaluable wisdom and experience, and creation of a supportive community, I now have the confidence and knowledge to go out there in the world and make an impact through dance. This training was everything and more that I needed..!"

→ Lien Kabelka - Belgium

"The leadership in this training was outstanding. The content was very well thought out, relevant and rich.  It filled in a lot of questions I've long held around how do do a great job leading conscious dance, but also provided examples of many different approaches.  I loved connecting with people from all over who are passionate about the same thing as me."→ Sarah Hall - USA

"Renée and Bernice - you two are the leaders we need right now. Thank you for this amazing opportunity!"

→ Nadine Guldimann - Switzerland

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

✤ Path A: You'll simply need a steady internet connection and the Zoom software installed on your computer.

✤ Path B: You won't need any software, simply a web browser to watch the recordings

Very much looking forward to meeting you!

Bernice, Renée & the DTM team