#2: Dancing with children, ecstatic essays and my latest set
Dear dancer,
Recently, a dancer sent me a ten-minute long voice message after a dance. He is one of these dance fanatics that goes everywhere to dance - I've seen him dance in Utrecht, Breda, Den Haag and Amsterdam. I always appreciate his presence on the dancefloor. The pureness of his movement and his engagement with the music help others free up their creativity too.
He was not pleased about de Nachtpapegaai.
His monologue had quite some critical notes on my set. And not just the one of that day, but all of my sets in the past months! His impression was that I was lacking urgency. He felt that I was playing it safe and predictable. As an adventurous dancer who likes the more edgy music, he was not surprised by my sets anymore. This made him sad, because I used to be one of his go-to’s for new discoveries and experiment.
Most of the time, dancers come up to me and say only the nice things. While this is flattering, I can kind of sense when dancers are not telling me everything. So it was very refreshing to get a message from a dancer who was genuinely disappointed and made an effort in sharing it carefully with me. And although I did not agree on everything he said, I think he had a point.
In Ecstatic Dance, I am very careful about balancing experiment and accesibility. I always try new things, but I also play alot of the same music again and again (because I just like it so much). It is mostly an intuitive process, but I feel that an ecstatic dancefloor is best when:
- A critical mass of dancers is engaged and present most of the set
- The DJ is enjoying what he's doing most of the time
I am not 100% there for the experiment, or for playing weird stuff just to prove myself as a music connoisseur. My intention is facilitating presence and connection on the dancefloor. So sometimes I just play easy things that I know will work in the moment. But I do try to stay away from too much easy Uhn tss uhn tss insert tribal sample here.
Anyway, in the past months I might have swayed a bit too much to the easy side, at least for this dancer. And he had a point: my sets haven't been too adventurous lately. Very refreshing when someone speaks the truth!
We ended up chatting back and forth, he shared some of his own creative work, it was nice and connective. And I was just what I needed to motivate me to find new pathways (something I succeeded only partly in last Sunday, which you can listen in the download below).
So dancers, if you feel that you have something to say, please come to me and share your honest experience about my set. No one is more critical of my sets than I am, and I love talking about what went wrong as well as what went right.
To the content!
TrackEssay of the month- A mindful mess: dancing with children
- Upcoming events
- As promised: my latest set at The Other Side
TrackEssay of the month
If you dance in the Netherlands, good chance that you know Léon Beckx. He is a professional dancer, five rhythms teacher ánd ecstatic dance dj, and has been around facilitating dances forever. He is also a writer, and he has been posting essays on Substack that are a pleasure to read! His last essay is called ‘The Dancing Plague’, and it places modern ecstatic dancing forms into a cultural history of freeform dance and activism. It is quite heady, but I love it. Recommended!
A mindful mess: dancing with children
Some weeks ago I was at the Ottermeerhoeve Family Festival, where I was booked (by my lovely spouse who programmed the festival) to facilitate Ecstatic Dance. In the morning before the dance, I went to a parent-child yoga class with my 5-year-old son. We were with about ten parents and about that many children. The yoga mats were placed in a circle, and we were all invited to follow the teacher, who had brought her 5-year-old as an assistant.
The class started out a bit tense, as the adults were mainly busy correcting their children. “Doe nou eens mee”, “Blijf hier!”, “Ssst!” - we were all trying very hard to get our children to bend like cats, stand like trees and blottom like lotuses. It felt a bit forceful - and forcefulness is more or less the opposite of yoga.
I’m not sure which parent first gave up. Maybe there was a collective parental insight. But the parents relaxed and started enjoying themselves. The children felt this, and suddenly they were participating as well! It's almost a cliché but it is the letting go of expectations that just made everything come together. The rest of the class was fun and enjoyable, and even deep and restful.
It inspired me for the Ecstatic Dance later that day - I'd let go of any expectations for a deep and concentrated dance. Our opening circle had 5 adults and about ten children. We started with a short moment of quiet. My son had come up an opening exercise with dinosaurs, which caused alot of noise and chaos. We went back to quiet animals after this.
For the music, I focused on the adults - just good, original dance music. The children were running around the room, playing with the yoga blocks and chasing each other, but the adults did not seem to mind. Everyone was just doing their own thing, nobody asked anything of anyone. In the end I might prefer the deep concentration that you get when there's all adults in the room. But when I let this expectation go, things were perfect as things with children can be perfect.
I am curious to know what your experience with Ecstatic Dance with children is, so let me know in your reply!
Upcoming Events
- June 27-29 Green Dream Festival
- July 4 PLAY! Ecstatic Dance Zwolle
- July 13 Ecstatic Dance, The Other Side, Amsterdam
- July 11 Ecstatic Dance, Bar Beton Utrecht
Download: Sunday morning Ecstatic Dance @ The Other Side, Amsterdam
Looking for new paths only partly worked for this set. The first wave my builtup was very straightforward, with some cumbia, but I tried peaking with some breaky rave music and then straight up dark psytrance. I spoke with some dancers afterwards and they said that the peak came a bit too early ánd was a bit too complex for the beginning of the set - I hate when that happens, and I thought I could feel the disappoint vibrate through the room. But I picked myself up. I made the second wave very warm, heart opening and accessible to keep the room engaged, and blasted out a much needed heavy drum ‘n bass peak at the end. The recording turned out fine, so here we go.
I’m using Proton Drive this time, let me know if it works.
Bonus: secret track of the month
Alot of jungle music is dark and glitchy, and I find it unsuitable for Ecstatic Dance. Too bad, because the jungle rhythms are great for dancing! Which is why I like this track so much and have been playing it in almost every set. It is so fresh, layered and happy, the best jungle track that I have heard in a while. GET LOOSE!
Get Loose by Cheetah & Nia Archives
And that's it, you've come all the way to the end! You're always welcome to send a reply, let me know your thoughts, and what else you'd like to hear in the news letter. See you soon on a dancefloor.
<3 de Nachtpapegaai
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