I wish I somehow had a highlight reel of all the facial expressions people have had when I say I like ecstatic dance. I mean I get it, the label “ecstatic dance” sounds totally out there, and wild and maybe like something that people who take a lot of drugs enjoy. We’re going to demystify ecstatic dance and maybe open up the possibility of your new favorite way to move.
This week I’m talking with my guest Ankati Day about:
About Ankati:
Ankati Day is a yoga teacher, sound healer, ecstatic dance DJ, and ceremonial facilitator who has been a student of sound since she was a babe watching Sesame Street. She believes that embodied presence is the doorway to healing, joy, and freedom, and that immersing ourselves in intentional practice and community is the nectar our souls crave. After grounding into a yoga practice that helped her heal her relationship with her body, Ankati connected with the path of Shamanism and a deeper healing form of dance when she lived in intentional community in Costa Rica for two years. She has been devoted to practicing and sharing the profound wisdom of this path since.
Ankati teaches yoga, offers Ecstatic Dance, and shares sound healing in the Seacoast of Maine and New Hampshire, as well as teaching immersive yoga teacher trainings internationally with the Kula Collective.
IG: @ankatiday
Website: ankatiday.com
Follow along @unforgettingpodcast on Instagram
I wish I somehow had a highlight reel of all the facial expressions people have had when I say I like ecstatic dance. I mean I get it, the label “ecstatic dance” sounds totally out there, and wild and maybe like something that people who take a lot of drugs enjoy. We’re going to demystify ecstatic dance and maybe open up the possibility of your new favorite way to move.
This week I’m talking with my guest Ankati Day about:
About Ankati:
Ankati Day is a yoga teacher, sound healer, ecstatic dance DJ, and ceremonial facilitator who has been a student of sound since she was a babe watching Sesame Street. She believes that embodied presence is the doorway to healing, joy, and freedom, and that immersing ourselves in intentional practice and community is the nectar our souls crave. After grounding into a yoga practice that helped her heal her relationship with her body, Ankati connected with the path of Shamanism and a deeper healing form of dance when she lived in intentional community in Costa Rica for two years. She has been devoted to practicing and sharing the profound wisdom of this path since.
Ankati teaches yoga, offers Ecstatic Dance, and shares sound healing in the Seacoast of Maine and New Hampshire, as well as teaching immersive yoga teacher trainings internationally with the Kula Collective.
IG: @ankatiday
Website: ankatiday.com
Follow along @unforgettingpodcast on Instagram
*This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors*
Hannah:
I wish I somehow had a highlight reel of all the facial expressions people have had when I say I like ecstatic dance. I mean I get it, the label “ecstatic dance” sounds totally out there, and wild and maybe like something that people who take a lot of drugs enjoy. But in reality…if you’ve ever been to a cycling class, or yoga class, or HIIT class, or CrossFit class… you’ve experience the benefits of being in your body. So we’re going to demystify ecstatic dance and maybe open up the possibility of your new favorite way to move. This week I’m talking with my guest Ankati Day about:
But first, let me tell you a bit more about Ankati.
Ankati Day is a yoga teacher, sound healer, ecstatic dance DJ, and ceremonial facilitator who has been a student of sound since she was a babe watching Sesame Street. She believes that embodied presence is the doorway to healing, joy, and freedom, and that immersing ourselves in intentional practice and community is the nectar our souls crave. After grounding into a yoga practice that helped her heal her relationship with her body, Ankati connected with the path of Shamanism and a deeper healing form of dance when she lived in intentional community in Costa Rica for two years. She has been devoted to practicing and sharing the profound wisdom of this path since.
Ankati teaches yoga, offers Ecstatic Dance, and shares sound healing in the Seacoast of Maine and New Hampshire, as well as teaching immersive yoga teacher trainings internationally with the Kula Collective.
Okay, here is my conversation with Ankati..
Hannah: Ecstatic dance is a phrase that sounds frankly terrifying to a lot of people. That is feedback that I have directly gotten from people. That sounds terrifying, but it sounds like something you'd be into. These are things I've heard when I say like ecstatic dance. Ankati, what is ecstatic Dance?
Ankati: On that note, just as a side tangent, sometimes I have also had people reflect back to me, exotic dance. You, so you, you teach exotic dance?
I'm like, no, no.
Hannah: I'd love to come.
Ankati: Could be if you want it to
Hannah: Could be.
Ankati: ecstatic dance came from the world of yoga and meditation, and both of those practices are practices designed to help us to, I might say, drop beneath the chatter of the mind and get a little more in touch with the core essence of who we are, or existence, or consciousness, however you wanna phrase it. Just a state of ecstasy you could say. Ecstatic dance attempts to do that through. Dance and music and the breath that needs to support both of those things so that through the experience of getting into your body, allowing your body to move however it feels inspired to move to the music that is presented to you, you can find a state of ecstasy that is to say beyond the chatter of the everyday mind, which is thinking about your grocery list and your like, I don't know, whatever else you might be thinking of.
Hannah: Yeah. And so when you're saying ecstasy, ecstasy sounds so extreme. It sounds very extreme, but what you're saying is, It makes you feel good, basic terms it makes you feel good. Dance doesn't sound quite as cool as ecstatic dance. Maybe that's the, that's why they started doing that, but ecstasy, a state of ecstasy or a state of feeling like elevated happiness or something like that.
We also experience this in being on a really good date or eating really yummy food or doing a workout and having that, like runner's high they call it. It's when we are in touch with our bodies and our experiences and really present and the mind chatter isn't running the show, it feels good.
Ankati: right. Yeah. And you touched on the really important point there of when you are feeling that state of ecstasy, when you are feeling really good, you aren't anywhere else. You are right there. When you are eating that really good food, you're not like, wow, this is really good. I have to vacuum the floor.
Later you're just like, wow, this is so good and I am so present in this thing
Am enjoying and ecstatic dance seeks to call us into that place so that you are like, wow, I am in my body. I am moving with the music. I am so in this moment, and that's all. That's all you have to do.
Hannah: Yes. Thank you. I love that. Yeah the shopping list should not be present when we are in these moments. So I've been part of these ecstatic dance communities, been going to these things for a couple of years, and one of the top responses I am sure you will agree with this Ankati in sharing about ecstatic dance is someone says back to me, that sounds really cool, but I can't dance.
So what is your response when
Ankati: Hmm.
Hannah: says that?
Ankati: two things. One, have a body and you can move it around. That's as far as it needs to go.
The other thing that I like to remind people is that this is not a dance competition. This is not a place where we're practicing choreography. We're not here to dance for anyone else. We're not here to be observed, even we are here to allow the physical being of this body to process whatever it needs to process through movement. And that can look like bopping your hips and shaking your booty, or that can look like rolling around on the floor. Or it can even look like stillness if that's what the body needs for a moment. So the term dance can encompass a much wider breadth of movement than we might normally assign it to, like in a club setting.
Hannah: Yes. And the gaze part is so powerful. As someone who is a woman, so often, other experiences of dance, the experience is. I don't even wanna say equal parts. It's 90 10 the 10 is me dancing. The 90 is my awareness of being watched dancing. And, it's the recentering of your experience in movement because everyone is there for that same thing.
Everyone is there to experience their own internal selves while dancing. So no one is staring at you. And so you've mentioned the club scene. How is this different than going out on a Saturday night to a club?
Ankati: Number one, we are dancing substance free. Which speaking of things that confuses people. That's, often a big one. People are like, wait a minute, I'm sorry. You want me to dance sober? It's hard enough for me to dance with alcohol in my system.
Um, but yeah, we are dancing sober because we want to have as clear of a channel as we can to that inner experience.
And we know intoxicants change it. Say what you will. Some people use substances in a really positive way to help them access deeper spaces, but that's just for another space. So in ecstatic dance versus the club, in ecstatic dance, you don't have to worry that anyone around you is in an altered state such that they might behave in a way that's not okay. So if we're going into the agreements of exotic dance, ? Number one, we, dance sober. We dance clear and clean so that we can be really present. Number two, we're keeping our phones and our cameras and our, all of that sort of stuff out of the dance space, helps us to stay present, right?
You're not, you don't have a beeping, buzzing thing, pulling it your attention, while you might actually be diving deeper into your own inner world, but it also helps to make sure that no one feels the potential for that gaze to then be posted on Instagram or that somebody might be going home with videos of you in your own inner process can feel really unsafe.
So we try to promote that sense of safety and, intimacy by keeping cameras and all that stuff just. Out of the space, which when you go to the club, like someone might be videoing you that gaze or even just the concern of the gaze is very real and can feel really vulnerable or really unsafe and might have us just not fully express ourselves. We also practice community care in a really big way. So not just even, oh don't run around their room and crash into people. We have a specific protocol or an approach for if you want to dance with somebody, how you ask their consent. And if they don't consent, that's a no. So leave them alone
Hannah: Yeah. Rather than at the club, it's assumed consent. And on the ecstatic dance floor, waiting for consent.
Ankati: It's mandatory consent,
Hannah: yeah. Thank you for saying that. And in terms of community too, there's no talking, right? And these are things that every time we gather for ecstatic dance everyone agrees to these things. , isn't people usually know this about exotic dance.
No, There is no assumed understanding. It's in every session we go over these things, so everyone's on the same page. And so do you wanna also say what the dance floor environment is like?
Ankati: Yeah, the dance floor is for dancing, period. That's it, we're not talking, we're not taking pictures. We're not doing anything other than dancing. And
Like I mentioned before, that dancing might mean stillness. But it's presence with yourself. So when you're on the dance floor, you might see people dancing with their eyes closed.
And our intention is to create a container where someone feels safe to do that. They don't worry that anyone's gonna come up and get grumpy, or they don't worry that they're gonna open their eyes when someone's filming them. They feel welcome to fully be in their own process. Over the course of a dance, we also, we go through a wave, ?
So on the dance floor we're playing What I like to call more like high vibe music. So we're gonna start off mellow to give people a chance to come into their bodies. We're gonna take it up in BPMs beats per minute, so that at some point we get to that kind of dance floor catharsis, where people can really let whatever energy is moving, move through their bodies.
Sometimes that means sound as well, not chatter, but sound expression. And then
eventually,
Hannah: let a few screams loose.
Ankati: yeah, they're contagious.
Hannah: Sometimes
Ankati: person starts,
Hannah: dig. Yep. Just let it out.
Ankati: this happens. nothing quite like jumping, flailing, and screaming with a dance floor of other people.
Hannah: It's like in the club, it's the woo. The woo happens sometimes like woo. And that's contagious. And then the ecstatic dance floor, it's like the beat drops and you're like, ah. And then, you know the scream.
Ankati: It's the primal scream version of the Woo.
Um, and within that context, right? Like the other thing I think that really makes ecstatic dance music different is that it's, clean, it's conscious, and it's high vibes. So if we're playing something that has lyrics, you know very well, it's not gonna be derogatory, it's not gonna be negative, it's not gonna be sexist, misogynist, any of that sort of stuff that you might hear on a dance floor, right?
I've been there, I've been to a club where you're like, oh, this bass is so good, but the words are so not.
Hannah: Yeah.
Ankati: Nice.
Hannah: Yeah.
I've been in spaces where there are children there. Don't have to be 18 plus to be ex like enjoying ecstatic dance.
Ankati: yeah. Totally. So we wanna make sure that all of the music is of a vibration that is supporting that lift into an ecstatic space. That we're
Dropping it down and then going, Ooh. I don't like what that song just said.
Hannah: Yeah. I love that. And so after the wave, what happens after the sort of the peak of the set?
How does the exotic dance come to a close?
Ankati: So we have some sort of closing soundscape. So you might equate that to a shavana in a yoga class. So sometimes people lay on the floor some people keep moving in kind of a stretching or just a more cooling down kind of way. Lately we've been having Hannah's wonderful husband play his
magical guitar soundscapes, which has been just, oh my gosh, it's such a bonus,
Hannah: He's just, I could, I'm gonna have about a billion episodes talking about how special he is, but yes, he's
Ankati: so dreamy.
And we have a closing circle, right? So after, after our soundscape, we come back together to close the space together, and that's an important part of what makes it feel like a conscious container that we just entered into something together. By having that opening circle and those opening agreements that you spoke to of, okay, let's all get on the same page here.
This is what we're here for, this is what we're doing. This is how we agree to hold the space, and then when we close it, It's okay, let's collectively seal up this experience and take home our Peace. Sometimes we have a few moments where people are welcome to share, a word they maybe are leaving with or something like that.
And then usually we close with something, whether it's you know, sometimes we um, sometimes we sigh together, sometimes, I don't know. We've like howled lots. Have we done, we've done all sorts of things,
Hannah: Yeah.
Ankati: but just something
to be like, right. Something for the group to be like, okay, we are now closing this container so that everyone can go
Hannah: Yeah.
Ankati: the night.
Hannah: Yes. It's so important, especially when we are new in this space, and I actually don't, trying to think, in the few years that I've been in, pretty involved in, in spaces like this, I don't think I've ever been to an ecstatic dance event where there were no new people. I think there's always someone who, it's like their first time ever doing ecstatic dance.
So I just wanna say that right out of the gate, we're gonna talk more about how you can play with this on your own later on. But I, it's always, there was always a new person and so it's not oh yeah, you're gonna show up in these spaces and people have been doing this for 20 years and you're the only one that doesn't really know what's going on.
Ankati: I just wanted to add people say, oh, is it weird if I come alone? Not at all, because we aren't doing the stand in a cluster and bop thing. That happens at clubs where if you go to a club on your own and you don't have a group to stand and bop with, you are the awkward fish just floating around on the dance floor.
An ecstatic dance. you come on your own, that's fine, because a of the people who are there also came on their own. So everyone is just going to flow on the
Hannah: Mm-hmm. Yeah I mean, Ankati mentioned my husband usually goes with me. He's goes even more often than I do, to be honest. And it is rare that him and I actually dance together. You know, I'm usually like eyes closed, doing my own thing. Even if you show up and you know, people, usually people are primarily doing their own thing, I think. Well, I mean, you see More than I do cuz I got my eyes closed the whole time. But yeah, very normal to be doing your own thing, showing up alone. For sure.
So I wanna talk about? What being an ecstatic dance like, Feels like when you're there and this is like your experience and maybe also sharing about what other people have told you their experience has been and what I'm happy to share about mine a little bit too.
But yeah. How would you say that it feels to be an aesthetic dance?
Ankati: Definitely varies from person to person pretty widely, but I think for a lot of us who are living in the modern world where we are go, go, go buzz, buzz buzz. Initially there can be a process of arriving of. Oh, whoa. I am now in this space where I am invited to move, how my body needs to move.
I have no clue what my body needs right now. And as much as we might look around the room and go, oh my God, everyone else knows exactly what they're doing and they know how to dance and they're so this, and they're so that. Nope. We're all generally awkwardly finding our way into our body and going, Hey, body, what's up? I'm, we haven't talked in a while. You know? So there's that initial landing process of, wow, let me just explore what's happening in this body. And then there's a process of expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction. This is what I know for myself, and it's also what I watch in people on the dance floor.
There will be time periods where it's like, wow, I'm so in my body and I'm loving this and I'm dancing and it's big, and da da da da. And then there's the like, Oh, whoa. I just remembered that I'm in a room with other people and I got really self-conscious for a second, or ooh, I just suddenly got really tired and I need to like slow down and sit down.
And then the, whether it's the song picks you back up or just the energy moves and it's ah, now there's this expansion. And in those periods of expansion, sometimes we do become aware of the other people who are in the room. And there can be this energetic play, like your husband is often stirring that energy.
He's moving around the space and he is like energetically playing with other people. So you might get people
who are like prancing around in a circle in the middle of the room,
or he's a he's a, or there might be collective energy for a little bit. And then that energy, the song will change or the vibe will change or what have you.
And that energy will go back into a more dispersed individual energy and people will go back into more of their process and their own individual experience. And so it's this very organic like go inward, come outward, go inward, come outward, take a break, have a snack, come back, come you know, that
Allows for whatever it needs to be.
For me, no too ecstatic dance experiences have ever been the same. When I've been on the dance floor, there have been dances where I've gone hard the whole time and there have been dances where I've been, like very kind of soft and flowy and spent a lot of time just sitting, snacking, whatever.
So it and I think that's a big piece of what can make it such a healing space is that whatever your experience is, that's the right one.
Hannah: Yeah, for sure. And I'm really happy that you spoke to the fact that it's not, you dance straight for however many minutes the ecstatic dance session is. It's the expansion, the exploration, and then the reflection or the resting or whatever it is. And some people, yeah, like my husband, he just, he goes the whole time and then you should see him when he gets home.
He is just done, he uses everything up. He didn't leave anything there. and for me, it's interesting cuz for me, like I will often move a lot of energy like move, dance, whatever for about the first half. And honestly like, I really only dance about half of it because for me it's. Moving so much energy in my body and paying attention to what's happening in my body and listening for the first time in probably a week or something, or two weeks, three weeks, whatever, actually getting fully present, getting some of that energy out.
That's Stagnant. And then I'm like laying in a corner for the second half, I guess you would say meditating. But I just feel so clear and I'm like so in touch with myself and the amount of like, I dunno if you wanna call them messages or insights or just connection to myself that I get in those moments after dancing for an hour.
have never come home without some deep realization or idea or insight into something that's going on. It's always there. And so for me, it's like getting my energy out of the way so that I can see that stuff or hear that stuff again. And there's all sorts of Ways of talking about the body keeps a score or trauma stored in the body or all these ideas that really what all that means is you are a mind of course, but you're also a body.
And so much of our experience is just in the mind and taking some time to carve out and protect some space to be in the body part of us. We just become more of the full self that we
are. We'll talk about that in a second. But first I would love to hear how you got in this space.
Ankati: hmm.
Hannah: the person who holds ecstatic dance space in our community. How did that happen?
Ankati: The like short story of how I started holding ecstatic dance locally was two of my friends came back from Beloved Festival in Oregon really amazing conscious dance experiences and they came back and were like, oh my God, we need to have this.
Will you learn how to dj? That was like okay,
So I luckily I had a friend from New York who, she's an amazing dj and so I reached out to her and she helped me figure out how to get started on all of that. And lo and behold, ecstatic dance, sea Coast was born with me being like,
Hannah: Yeah.
Ankati: know how to do this,
But as far as ecstatic dance itself and where I met dance I went to grad school in Montana and was in Missoula where some of my friends there were like Burning Man Festival, all the things. They loved that. And so we collectively started an ecstatic dance together. And I have very visceral memories of going to my first few ecstatic dances and seeing people doing like the full like fla arms rolling on the floor.
And I was like, what is going on? I'm gonna stand over here. And b like. whoa. And, and it took me some time. It took me some time and some dances to finally let go enough to try out flailing my arms and rolling on the floor and, and you know, just to see, wow, what does this even feel like in my body?
What does it feel like to consider what my body wants to do, rather than, oh, I there's the beat. Let me just bop to the beat.
Hannah: Yes. I love that. . We started mentioning essentially the concept of embodiment.
And you're saying you finally got to a place where you were really able to maybe embody yourself more. And embodiment is one of those like, trendy words in the space.
The spaces for the people do the things. what does embodiment mean? Can you help us out? What does that, what does it mean to be embodied?
Ankati: So I think maybe I'll offer some context for why I think embodiment is such a trendy word and an important one. I think a lot of the trendy words become trendy because we realize that they're important, right? Trauma is also a trendy word because I think it's an important one.
For a lot of us, when we are young, when we have intense experiences, they produce intense sensations in our bodies.
Whether that's anxiety, fear, sadness, overwhelm, you name it, those are all sensation oriented emotions. And when we're kids, we don't have the tools to go, oh, wow. I am feeling anxiety. And like I understand that. We just go, oh my God, my body feels like a really scary place to be right now. I am so overwhelmed in this physical vessel.
So our energy, or our spirit, or our consciousness, however you wanna phrase it, is like, you know what's safer and feels better, let's just get outta this body because his Body's a lot right now. So we develop this skill of like, wow, body feels like, let, I'll just leave the body. But over time
We just kind of start living out here so that when someone
Hannah: mm
Ankati: how does that feel in your body?
And I imagine for a lot of us, we can remember a time where someone went, how does that feel in your body? And we went, I don't know.
Hannah: Fine. I dunno.
Ankati: yeah, it feels fine. Am I supposed to feel something?
so as adults then we have to practice developing our skills and capacity that when we are feeling things that evoke physical sensations that we stay.
In our bodies. We don't just go out into the intellectual thinking, disassociation, disembodiment, land that we have. The courage takes a lot of courage, right? To stay with that discomfort sometimes, but also the practice of happening in my body, whether that's great stuff or it's hard stuff. I'm going to stay with the sensation rather than completely disassociate and distract myself, so to say.
Practices like ecstatic dance, Chiang walking, I don't know. There are like so many different ones can be ways to help us develop skills and capacity. To stay with the sensations in our body, and then on a
deeper level to even gain wisdom and insight from the sensations and the cues and the ways that our body is speaking to us constantly, that historically maybe we've just checked out from or tuned out.
so embodiment is a practice of staying with body and ourselves as much as we possibly can.
Hannah: That is the best description, explanation of embodiment I've ever heard. Thank you for doing that for us. And because you're, hitting on one of the most important things, I think other people sometimes. Skip over is that it makes sense why we are disconnected from our bodies. You know, Oftentimes people just start from the well, you're disconnected from your body and you need to be connected, right?
And it's like, well, I don't even know how I got here. Like Is there something wrong with me? There's something wrong with me that I'm disconnected from My body might just some piece of shit like zombie that I don't know what's going on. No, it's usually linked to childhood, ? And it was really fucking smart of our brains to figure out that strategy of disconnect.
This doesn't feel good. And as we grow up and we become older and we, can both learn ways to regulate or learn ways to support ourselves through difficult emotions while stepping back into our bodies because when we were children sensations like anxiety, for example, were too overwhelming and there was no way to regulate, no way to support ourselves.
So we left. It's not that we're saying no, no, go back to just being overwhelmed, but stay with it and just be not okay. It's no, here are tools to actually be able to manage anxiety, to feel through it, to be okay so that then you can be present for it. So it's the combination of those two things.
It's coming back to the body and learning how to be okay with the sensation.
Ankati: . And it doesn't even require like massive capital T trauma as a child. To have experiences that cause us to disconnect the way that we experience overwhelm can be really simple things that from now an adult perspective, when we look at them, we go, oh, that's not a big deal, but the smallest things to a child can be a massive deal, right?
So whatever the experiences were, I think a lot of people look back and they're like, oh, my childhood was fine and great and totally perfect, so I shouldn't have these feelings. No. It might be
that one time that you had an ice cream cone and you weren't paying attention and the dog ate it and you felt really shocked and scared and surprised by that.
That could have been the thing that you were like,
Hannah: mm. yes. Yeah. I love that you're pointing that out because trauma isn't what happened to us. It's what happened inside of us. When things were going on. And so it doesn't need to be this whole big thing that's newsworthy. It can just be that was too much for me to experience. So thank you for saying that.
And what are we missing out on by being disconnected to our bodies? What are some things that we get access to again, when we're more embodied or more connected? You
Ankati: Pleasure.
My undergraduate world, I studied sociology and gender studies, and as my senior thesis, I studied sex ed and basically what ended up being studied the failings of the sex ed system.
Hannah: Which are multiple.
Ankati: many but it did the interesting thing of labeling me as the girl who talked about sex, who would like openly have conversations about sex and sexuality and intimacy.
And it was a really interesting glimpse into how disconnected people were. I would say are from pleasure and from their ability
To stay in their body enough to really fully experience pleasure.
We can just talk about
that in terms of sensuality, even being able to say like, wow, yeah, I just feel super sensual and like juicy in my body right now. If I'm not in my body, I can't feel that. I'm just like, Ugh, have a body and it moves through space and it does stuff and eh, I guess that's it, right? So there's the pleasure side of things, which. I don't know. We could go down a whole road of the puritanical denial of pleasure. But hand in hand with that also is intuition and our own sense of wisdom and truth, which oftentimes I think, speaks to us in those little physical sensations and prods,
for me, often it's a little sensation in my stomach or it's this kind of whole body tingle thing that happens when I'm going, is this the right choice for me? If I get the whole body tingle thing, it's good information, but I have to be able to feel and notice, and then acknowledge and understand what that whole body tingle is for me to access what my own inner wisdom is saying.
Otherwise, it's just all my brain talking.
Hannah: Yes. Yeah I, love that you brought up pleasure and. I've often said we, you can't selectively numb feelings or selectively numb yourself to like, I don't wanna deal with this grief, or this heartbreak, or this anxiety, so I'm just gonna numb that out. You can't choose what you're numbing. You just numb yourself.
You just dampen everything down. Right? If you are unwilling to experience sadness uncertainty or confusion, if you're unwilling to experience that, you're also your capacity to feel pleasure to sexual or otherwise, to feel happiness, to feel love, to feel safe, everything. It's just, ooh, you can dampen everything if you choose to.
Ankati: Yeah. Yeah. We can't selectively numb.
Our emotions.
Hannah: So, you kind of mentioned this briefly, the puritanical culture. And one thing that I wanna say to all of our white bodied listeners, Is that this concept of dance might be particularly hard for you to wrap your mind around, or particularly hard for you to let go and there's a reason for that.
And so if we think about the culture of whiteness to be a white American specifically you know, this country was founded on the values of the puritans.
Literally this is what the country was built on. This is what people were measured against. And so part of this culture for white Americans is a disconnection. From our bodies, a disconnection from trusting our bodies and living only in the mind. Living only in the mind, and following all of these rules about why pleasure is bad or intuition is bad.
God forbid a woman said, I just have a feeling that this is the right thing for me. This is the wrong thing for me. That woman would literally be tied to a egg and burned. So this is really deep in our generational history and our generational trauma is to disconnect from the wisdom of our bodies, from having the, tools and the power of embodiment.
So from the culture of whiteness, from that perspective, but also then as a tool to other. Other groups, right? So there are so many groups of people and cultures that embrace the power of embodiment, that do dance, that are really connected to their bodies. And this culture of whiteness has said well, they are wrong, and if you are like them, you are wrong too.
And so it has just doubled down this, push, this pressure to not be like that because then we can marginalize those groups and oppress those groups for the way that they are wrong. This especially doubles down even more if you are a white man, because then if you're a man, we can also say well, if you dance, not only are you wrong, not only are you like those other groups, but you are like the marginalized groups of women or gay people.
You know, You're too feminine or are you gay if you like dancing? So there's so many societal pressures. Within white supremacy when it comes to dancing, that it really is not just you, that it feels like, oh, this is hard for me to do, or maybe I'm just bad at this. This is generations of actual trauma telling us to not listen to our bodies, and it is an actual act against white supremacy.
This is maybe a hot take, but you were fighting against white supremacy when you choose to dance, when you choose to be in touch with your body. Okay. I'll step down from my, my screaming platform.
Ankati: I think also just to circle back to the puritanical part, sensuality was not just bad, it was satanic, So When we think about our hips and our like spine and that sensual movement and the way of actually being able to unlock those parts of our bodies so that we can physically move and dance, we were taught to just put those parts of our bodies on lockdown. Like that shit's dangerous. That's Satan. So if we have generations of people before us who have learned, like just put that on lockdown. Do not move your hips,
It absolutely makes sense.
Then. And we were talking about this before we started recording. When you go to a, a wedding full of white people and you're like, what are you, is, what are you doing with your, with your hips right now? this is like a little butt wiggle thing. Is that what you
got?
Hannah: they're there just moving what they
got. They're moving what they got. And they
need quite a few drinks to be able to get to that point.
Ankati: right? Yeah. Just this little like thing. Whereas when you see other cultures who, in which dance has never been vilified, you're like, I'm sorry, how do you do that? How do you move your body in that way? And
That's, that is an energetic lineage where that was never shut down.
Hannah: It's so real. And I like the way that you've said that some of the other cultures have that connection to their bodies when just maintained it. It wasn't stopped. . Because, especially for white Americans, none of us were born here.
Despite what our classrooms might have told us, this was not our spot
Ever to begin with. This was not our land. We came from somewhere else. And maybe that suppression was going on in the countries we came from before that. But before that, our lineage did not just start.
When the pilgrims got here. Right. You know, We do have connection to earth-based religion. We have connection to being in our bodies. It was just severed. And so it is a radical act to reclaim that.
Ankati: Hell yeah. absolutely.
Hannah: Yeah. So now that we are all
fired up on
that,
let's talk about how we can explore these ideas in a few different ways. So how we can explore this on our own if we aren't ready to step out into community yet. Maybe how to step into community and then some external resources.
What are some ways that we could start playing with this idea of movement or ecstatic dance on our own?
Ankati: Honestly, I think the kitchen dance party is the best place to start. And there are tons and tons and tons of ecstatic dance DJs out there who all post their sets on SoundCloud. Obviously, I post my sets on SoundCloud. You're welcome to go listen to them. So that you have an uninterrupted, whether it's an hour-ish or more of time where on your own you can just see what it's like to set down the expectations of this is what dancing is supposed to look like. on some music, maybe dim the lights, and then just see what happens. Allow yourself to explore the, sense of safety that we look for in community has to start by creating a sense of safety just with ourselves, , can I allow myself to feel safety moving my body in the privacy of my own home where no one can see me? It's just me, because that's where we start to
hear
any of the stories of limitation that might come up.
And it's gonna be much easier to meet them when it's you and the music and your story and not you and the music and a room full of people.
For me it took a long time to, I don't wanna say overcome, but process through maybe the part of me that felt like it was dangerous to dance in any way that could be perceived as sexy. So for a long time I denied myself that. I was like, Nope, we don't dance in that way. That's dangerous. And I think that's tied to what you said earlier, this like 10%, 90% part. The 10% of you that's dancing and the 90% of you that's oh God, people are looking at me. So that was a story for me that I had to meet and work with for a while in my own ecstatic dance journey.
So when we start dancing on our own, we can start to encounter and dialogue with some of the stories that might limit us from stepping onto an ecstatic dance dance floor.
Hannah: I'm really glad you mentioned that too, because again, what we were saying before, it makes sense why that's coming up for you. Whatever comes up for you makes sense. And so rather than telling us like ourselves, oh, it's so annoying, I'm just by myself like, this is fine for me to dance like this. Why am I thinking about it?
practicing compassion with ourselves for honoring that if dancing in a sexy way doesn't feel safe for me, that's because at some point it wasn't.
Whether that was just psychologically or actually physically, or culturally or whatever, that's real and that's important. And so to go slowly with ourselves, intensity does not equal more growth.
Often, I think it's the opposite, right? Going slowly with ourselves and dancing in a way that is just exploring our senses. You know, We're talking about sensuality. Sensuality is just connection to the senses, and just practicing or playing with the idea, maybe it's only five minutes at a time, maybe it's one song.
The first time you explore this. And if any of you are now thinking like, I know, I'll just record myself to see what I look like and see if it's okay. Do not, you are not allowed to record yourself during this process. I will storm into your house and break your phone, but just play a song and just feel in yourself what it feels like to move.
What does my body feel like? Tuning in with your senses as you move. And that's all it is. That's literally all this is. And so as you start to feel more safety, as you build safety within yourself, as you're saying, Ankati, that's a lot of what safety is, Is then stepping into community can be the next phase of feeling accepted in your embodiment.
And that is so powerful that cannot. Understate how powerful it is to be dancing in a group of people. And some of you listening may have never done an ecstatic dance before, but maybe you've been to a yoga class, maybe you've run a race, maybe you've run a 5K or something, or maybe you have uh, been in a meditation class or just a workout class, a hit class or something with other people.
There's a reason it feels different when you're with other people than it does by yourself. There is Collective energy that when we can feel other people's energy, when we can feel that our energy is a part of the collective,
it's.
just really fucking cool. I don't know if there's like science behind it or what happens.
It just feels cool to be a part of that.
Ankati: There is science behind that, and that's called mirror neurons.
And that's my, that's my brain and your brain sinking up with each other.
Where we collectively essentially help each other regulate, \ it's, the thing that if we spend time with that, we all know it. That one person in our lives who is like all just always on edge and buzzing, and then after you spend some time with them, you're like, oh my God, I'm like, buzzing too.
And that's because your brain was like, whoa, that's what we're doing. Ok. The other thing that I think, and I'm really glad you brought up yoga classes and races and meditations and all that sort of stuff, is when we step into communal space, we eventually come face-to-face with the fact that we are worrying, what is everyone else doing?
What's everyone else thinking about me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then at some point we're like, oh, they're just doing their own thing. They're,
they really don't care. Okay,
cool. I'm just gonna do my own thing now. So that, that level of, I really am accepted here. Nobody's staring
at me and judging me as much as I might have imagined that everybody is staring at me and judging me.
They're not. That, that saying that like everybody is walking around worrying what everybody else is thinking
Hannah: . And when we go into a space like Ecstatic Dance, where before it starts, we all gather, we set agreement, and we decide we belong together.
And everyone's experience is welcome and everyone's experience is valid. It like takes that to another level where there's not even the questioning, there's not even the, like you need to build this idea for yourself. It's just deciding at the beginning, yeah, we're all good. This is good. You're supposed to be here, do you
and that is so powerful. Like, I can't I can't even say. It's just that's so important. And
not only that, but sometimes like taking it a step farther is when I don't have my eyes closed. I usually do at exotic dance. But seeing other people express freely releases something in me. That allows me to explore that more fully for myself.
And you were saying the like, I'm not allowed to dance sexy. That's dangerous. Honestly, for so many years in my life, that was the only way I knew how to dance. Or I thought that was the only way I knew how to dance when that is so not true. when I first learned to dance, I was a child we were all children the first time we learned how to dance.
The first like, you know, the knee bouncing my, like one year old nephew was in that face. He's just like, oh yeah, I got it. We were little when we first learned that. And one thing that was so impactful in my life is in these dance communities, getting in touch with how fucking fun it is to dance, to have fun, not from a place of trying to be sexualized at all.
And frankly, actually even being. Funny in dance, being playful in dance, and just like reconnecting to that started by seeing others, let themselves do that. And it gave
me the chance to give myself the permission to also just, dance. and I have heard people
laughing and not
laughing at me, but
Ankati: laughing. Joy,
right?
dancing
Hannah: weird together or like whatever the hell I'm doing, I don't even know. I sometimes
Ankati: think like, like,
Hannah: my.
Ankati: my.
Hannah: goes from moving around to animal on the Muppets to wild creature. I don't know. But just having other people giving me permission to be myself and then when I'm myself, also giving other people the permission to be themselves.
Ankati: Yeah, that's huge. And I, I often, as the dj you know, with kind of a vantage point of the dance floor, I will especially see new people go through this really interesting progression, where they'll stand often stand at the fringe and kinda bop and like get a sense. And then the more they see, oh, people are just going for it,
They'll let themselves go a little bit more. And then a couple dances ago, there was this really amazing moment where the energy was building and the whole dance floor was coming together in the middle and jumping, and there was so much energy. And I watched this one new person standing on the outside and it was almost like they had this moment of like, are we are we doing this?
We're do. Yeah. And like, jump right
Hannah: Yeah. Yes.
Ankati: it's this beautiful process of like you mentioned, watching other people fully go for it, us permission to go, oh, I can do that. I can do this. We're doing this. Okay, let's go.
Hannah: Yes. And again, as we were saying, slow is fast. Slow is the way, and maybe that doesn't happen on your first dance either, right? Maybe you are learning that and being exposed to it and seeing way other people dance and you know that you wanna be there, but your body is still saying, not yet.
That is perfect. That is also perfect. The practice is listening to your body and letting your body guide you. there's this woman, Victoria, Washington, and she does something completely different, but one of her affirmations is Body leads mind follows. You know? And just coming back to that idea of.
My mind gets to run my life all the time. And when I am here for two hours, once a month, it's my body's chance and a protected time for my body to actually lead the way.
Ankati: I love that.
Hannah: So let's talk about external resources, how we can get tapped into the ecstatic dance world. What are some ways to find an ecstatic dance community, or if that doesn't feel like the right call for you right now to explore movement with guidance.
Ankati: So ecstatic dance.org is a great place to start. Any and all ecstatic dances around the world can list themselves there. So wherever you are, there's probably an ecstatic somewhere in here. Of course, it's not necessarily an exhaustive resource.
Not all dances are on there, but it's a great place to start. If going to ecstatic dance right off the bat feels good for some of us, it can feel better to have more of a lead. Movement practice. So a little more structure can create more of a sense of safety.
And there are tons and tons and tons of different formats out there that will give us some free reign to dance. Like they're not choreography classes, but they'll give us a little bit more of an arc, so there's something called Journey Dance led by a wonderful woman named Tony Bergens. There's the 360 emergence, which is Kate Shea and Amber Ryan.
And both of these have online components as well, so you could tune in and experience more of a lead dance from home. Right where you don't have to actually be in a room where anyone else can see you. Five rhythms is also a great option. Very structured, but also lots of free opportunity for movement if even that feels out of reach for your body.
Right? And some of us have had experiences in our past where free movement just literally feels inaccessible. We don't know where to start. A somatic practitioner can be an amazing, amazing, amazing gift because that practitioner is going to be really skilled in just helping you access your body in a really gentle supportive way.
That's not gonna just be like, all right, dance floor, let's go. And your body's like, ah we wanna avoid that. So that would be a great place to start if you really feel challenged by accessing dance, like even in a kitchen dance party.
Hannah: I, really like the fact that you're pointing out somatic work and there's a, bunch of different ways that you could approach that. And acknowledging that we have different starting points and that for some of us the, stretch or the area for learning more about ourselves is in.
Going a bit crazier and being more explosive or intense with movements. And that's a stretch for us and for our bodies. And that's where our bodies wanna go. And for some of us it's the opposite. It could be that you're really comfortable in kind of going wild and being crazy and funny or whatever.
And moving slowly is the stretch. And that's the place where the wisdom lies in us. So this is not a one size fits all thing and somatic work, somatic practices, whether worth a practitioner or on your own. All that means is really just being integrated and practicing embodiment and like really being able to explore our bodies in a way that feels safe enough to explore.
As we close, what is something that you would say directly to the listener that is very interested? There's a part of them that's like, ding, ding, ding, this is something I need. And then there's also a part that's like, no fucking way, we're not doing that. what is something you would say to the person that's like, part of them knows, and then the other part's like, ah, I don't know if I could.
Ankati: I would say try out something at home first. So of course it's going to be different for each of us, like you mentioned, depending on where we're starting. But put on an ecstatic dance set at home and start moving your body and see how that feels.
And my general sense is that if there's a part of you that is like yes, and then there's a part of you that's like, no. The part that's like yes, is probably your body and the part that's going no is probably your mind.
And so when you give your body that little taste of like, ooh let's, let's move around a little bit, let's explore.
You might just put some fuel on that fire enough to give you courage to just put it on your calendar and just go walk through that door and try it out. The other thing that I would say is give yourself full permission. If you dance for half an hour and you are like, that's what I have this time, I'm done now you can leave.
That's okay. Give yourself full permission that when you feel like you are, done. It's okay to go right. like you said, slow growth is the name of the game here. You don't feel like you
have to push yourself to go to like the biggest, ecstatic dance and dance the whole time and stay the whole time and meet all the people.
You might get there and find that you are inspired to do all those things, but you also might dance for an hour and then just need to lay on the floor. That's
okay Too.
Hannah: Like I said, that's what my body does almost every single time. I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I dance a little time. Maybe, Maybe, not you're naming something so. it's almost so obvious that it's not, is that when ecstatic dance aims to get you to listen to your body, it's not about dancing at all.
Because if you show up and your body says, I've had enough, that is the point of ecstatic dance is to listen to what your body is saying. And so it is not about dancing the whole time.
It's not. So if you go and you show up and you do as much as your body's wanting to do and then you leave, that's exactly what we're here for.
Ankati: Hopefully
Hannah: our level of excitement here because clearly this is something that you and I love to do. But how can we follow along with you? How can we hear your set lists? If you are in the local Sea Coast, New Hampshire space, how can we with you?
Give us the rundown on where we can find you.
Ankati: my handle on Instagram is @AnkatiDay. Just one word, @AnkatiDay. So if you wanna follow me on social media, that's probably where you're gonna actually see me posting stuff. I am generally quite active in sharing about any events that are coming up. So it's a good place to find things out. My website is my name.com ankatiday.com and I always post all the upcoming stuff on there.
I also have a newsletter if you feel like allowing me into your inbox. We dance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Generally the second Saturday of the month. And then I am on SoundCloud as well, so if you go to my website, you can find it through there. Or if you go to SoundCloud, there aren't so many on cos in the world DJing and posting set lists, so it's not that hard to find me.
Hannah: Awesome.
Well,
Ankati: thank you so much
Hannah: having this conversation with me. It's something that has truly changed my life, ecstatic dance, and I'm really happy to be able to share it with someone who is also the guiding light in that space for me. So thank you for being here.
Ankati: I feel highly energized having gotten to, to vibe on it all with you, Hannah. Thanks so much for the conversation.