SO… over a month has passed and your New Year’s resolutions are holding strong. You’ve stubbed out the final cigarette and drained the last bottle of wine. But do you sense something missing? A three letter word beginning with f and ending with n?
If so, maybe it’s time for you to check out the conscious dance scene.
This is partying in a smoke and alcohol- free environment. Highs are achieved naturally with a combination of breath, movement and music, complimented with wheatgrass juice for a bit of voomah; cacao shots to get the heart energy flowing and bliss balls for a burst of happiness.
Conscious dance is a new take on an ancient theme. As the late Frank Natale, or Professor Trance as he was known, wrote in his guide to trance dance, The Dance of Life,
“Dance, as a way to move into trance, dates back over 40,000 years to before recorded civilization.”
Twenty years ago, Frank brought his beard, beats and blindfolds to Joburg, at a time when the country was still reeling from Apartheid. I stood in a circle of strangers and wrapped a bandana around my head as Frank’s resonant voice intoned: “From the Yoruba of Western Africa, the Umbanda of Brazil, the Sioux of North America, the Shamans of Siberia, the Vodun of Haiti…”
Then a sound like elephants trumpeting played over the drumbeat as we started to shuffle around. I remember being really annoyed because I kept tripping over a television cable. No-one had asked permission to film and later I saw myself on television flailing about like a fish on dry land.
It wasn’t the best introduction to trance dance but twenty years have passed, the professor has died and I’m willing to reach for ecstasy again with the help of Jax Jai, who has never heard of Frank Natale and is leading a new branch of the trance dance scene in Cape Town.
Jax Jai’s journey to ecstatic realms began in Ayr, Scotland.
Jax’s Facebook profile pic shows her balancing on one arm and doing the splits in mid-air. Her sculpted Madonna-like body is tribute to years of dedicated yoga practice which began in 1993 when, with the help of a talking tape, she wrapped her legs into the lotus position and waited patiently to levitate. When the yoga asanas kept her earthbound, she tried LSD. For a time in her early twenties, Jax was travelling so often to the spiritual realms on acid trips that she deserved frequent flyer miles.
Jax came crashing to earth when a boyfriend committed suicide. Thus began a darker phase of drug taking, tinged with a death wish, until she tried DMT. This is the chemical extract of Ayahuasca, a drug that has become popular with spiritual seekers for the profound revelations it provides, in between bouts of vomiting.
The DMT trip was a turning point in Jax’s life. She says, in a rich Ayrshire accent “All my life I wanted to be a dancer, but I didn’t like choreography.” As the DMT began to course through her veins, Jax made a wish that she could dance. When the drug began to take effect, she started to move spontaneously as she felt her energy free up.
From that time, Jax describes dance as a “spiritual experience.” She stopped dabbling with drugs, qualified as a yoga teacher, moved to Cape Town and two years ago attended the Harry Potterish- sounding School of Ecstatic Awakening in England.
I’m drawn to Jax’s impressive strength and flexibility. Writing only exercises the brain and recently I’ve been feeling a bit rigid and joyless.
In many shamanic societies, if you complain to the medicine person of feeling disheartened or depressed, they ask:
When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?
In shamanic cultures, sickness is attributed to loss of soul and dancing, singing, being enchanted by stories, and finding comfort in silence are food for the soul.
I’ve been attending to the singing, story and silence aspects of my soul, but have stopped dancing. I confess to Jax that I can’t remember the last time I had a good shake-down.
She looks at me earnestly and announces in her gorgeously trilling Scottish accent, “Were goin’ ta get ya back into yer body.” Her parting instruction is, “Bring yer own blindfold.”
At 6pm on Buitengracht Street, incense pours out of the Kushido dojo, mingling with petrol fumes from the rush hour traffic. Entering the dojo my ears are greeted with the inimitable sound of a Northern Irish accent – think Liam Neeson. It turns out the doorkeepers is from my home country, Northern Ireland. Conscious dancing is certainly not a trend among our conservative population of 2 million. The odds of meeting a Northern Irish compatriot at a conscious dance event are slim enough to strike me as miraculous, some kind of homecoming sign.
The longing for ecstasy doesn’t discriminate or diminish with age. In our mixed group, nubile Lycra-clad nymphs mingle with septuagenarians with flowing white beards. I chat to a regular, a medical research professor from Stellenbosch who says that conscious dance helps him relax.
The music is a jungly mingling of drums and didgeridoos. I close my eyes and find myself elbowing my way through the Amazon rainforest. Two hours later, the evening is brought to a close with everyone lying on their backs, in the yoga pose known as savasana. A gentle goddess gives the exhausted dancers a healing stroke while Sarah Deva softly strums the guitar.
We end in a circle, holding hands, giving thanks and promising to meet and move together again.
The real benefits of trance dance are apparent the next day: no hangover, a good night’s sleep and a body that feels like it has been lovingly kneaded all over.
l To experience conscious dance: Jax 078 155 7878, www.jaxjai.com