Trance dance
Trance dance refers to a practice in which through dancing - partly connected with special breathing techniques (. Eg hyperventilation ) - a trance is brought about. This practice is found in many cultures and is often associated with ecstatic states. In the various cultures, the trance dance is mostly performed in a religious context and is associated with cult activities. The trance dance is often a community dance of an indigenous people or the individual dance of a shaman . Also in the area of western esotericism and in alternative psychotherapeutic approaches of the New Age , trance dance is practiced in the "West", as well as in some electronic music scenes, especially in the Goatrance subculture.
Religions in which the trance dance plays a role are z. B. the ethnic religions of Southeast Asia or North America, Sufism , as well as African or Afro-American religions such as Voodoo or Candomblé , in which " possession by the gods" occurs during the trance dance .
Trance dance in the Paleolithic
Some anthropologists and ethnologists suspect that the trance dance was already practiced in the Paleolithic . Methods of cognitive archeology were used to prove this thesis.
The cave paintings , in which dancing animal-human hybrid creatures are depicted, play an essential role . These scientists believe that some caves had a cultic function. Other caves are said to have been used to record religious knowledge in the form of images, as the passages are too narrow to serve as a ritual venue. More than 50 figures from prehistoric times are known, depicting mixed animal-human beings, several of which are shown dancing. According to David Lewis-Williams, the central cultic act of the hunter religions of the Paleolithic was the trance dance. Therefore - based on neurological comparisons - it is assumed that many of the cave images depict trance visions . In addition, pipes and flutes made of bones have been found in many caves, which also indicates a musical accompaniment of (dance) rituals .
Another argument that speaks for the practice of the trance dance in the Paleolithic is the analogy to today's hunter religions. Since it can be assumed that similar psychological and social components also produce similar spiritual practices and ideas, the practice of trance dance in today's ethnic groups can be inferred from trance dance in the Paleolithic. Some scholars also suspect that shamanism stems directly from the religious ideas of the Paleolithic, so it is likely that the trance dance was already practiced at that time.
Today's trance dances
Siberian shamans
In Siberian shamanism and with some necromancers from other peoples, the dance serves the shaman as a means of entering the trance. It is usually accompanied by fast drums and rattles (played by the shaman himself), bells and singing. Often times the shaman turns counterclockwise during the dance. Most of the time, the dance is associated with a ritual ecstasy, a changed state of consciousness and, as a result, a “ soul journey ” into spiritual worlds. Often the trance dance is also used to "associate with helping spirits" or to heal .
In shamanic trance dance, a certain cosmology is often expressed. Sometimes promoting psychotropic substances are also used.
America and Southeast Asia
Many dances by North American Indians - for example the prairie tribes or the plateau cultures - also fall under this category. Well-known examples are the sun dance (in which staring at the sun, drumming and the constant pain of the dance steps led to a trance) or the ghost dance . Some trance dances are assigned to the cults of possession , such as the eagle dance of the Shoshone and Crow , Papua snake and ida dances in New Guinea or the trance dance of the Senoi of Malaysia.
Traditional trance dances have also been preserved on some islands of Islamic Indonesia - such as the Reog (also Reyog ), a dance theater with a lion mask in Java and some local dancers with hobby horses . On Java these events are accompanied by music ensembles with the cone oboe Selompret , drums and sometimes with gongs . The Balinese dance drama Kecak was still a trance dance at the beginning of the 20th century.
San in Africa
In some of the traditional religions that are still widespread throughout Sub-Saharan Africa - for example in West Africa or Botswana - trance dances play an important role. As an example of trance dances by indigenous peoples, the trance dance of the San should be described in more detail. The trance dance is used by the San for various magical purposes, for example to make rain, to heal or to attract game. The dance is performed in the community. While the women sit around a fire, clap and sing a certain rhythm, the men dance in a circle around them, sometimes rattling their feet. In the trance dances, people are present who do not dance themselves to help the dancers, as they sometimes cannot control their trance and pass out. When the dancers have fallen into a trance, they walk around and touch the others with their hands to heal them. In their opinion, they absorb the evil themselves and push it out through a hole in the neck, accompanied by a scream.
According to the trance dancers, they make out-of-body journeys and have a power with which they can positively influence others and their environment. Sometimes, according to the San, a trance dancer transforms into a hybrid of lion and human who brings mischief because of this power. A trance dancer has a few years' apprenticeship with an experienced dancer until he decides whether he can handle the force. Among the San today, a third of women and half of men are trance dancers.
Sufi brotherhoods
Some Sufi orders ( Tariqas ) practice trance dance to induce ecstatic states ( hal or ahwal ), in which the highest mystical experience, the encounter and becoming one with the divine, occurs. These dance rituals contain three elements: dance ( raqs ), devotion ( dhikr ) and “listening” (as a Sufi ceremony Sama , a special form of the Alevis Semah ).
The trance dance of the dervishes consists in a continued turning around the own body axis with outstretched arms, the best known here is the Mevlevi order . However, there are also other Sufi groups that dance (even without dervish twists); partly connected with breathing exercises, certain movements and recitation of a divine name. The ecstatic state can manifest itself through staggering, frozen movement, screaming or inarticulate sounds. In the literature there are often reports of visions that occur during rituals or dancing.
The dervish dance was repeatedly exposed to criticism from Orthodox Muslims. However, the dance was justified on the grounds that it served to express love for God and to free the soul from the fetters of the body in order to reach the heavenly spheres, the origin of the human spirit.
Some scholars attribute the dervishes' trance dance to pre-Islamic practices in which a cosmology of dancing stars, suns and planets was to be expressed. They consider the dervish dance to be a legacy of Central Asian shamanism.
Music-induced trance dances are used by the Sufi order of the Hamajas in Morocco in a healing ritual, through which a patient possessed by the female spirit Aisha Qandisha is to be healed.
Western trance dance
In the areas of self-awareness, alternative psychotherapy and esotericism , trance dance has played a role again since the end of the 1960s, often as a free expressive dance in which a blindfold is sometimes worn to encourage immersion or as part of other concepts of self-awareness and change such as B. Biodanza , dance therapy , body psychotherapy , body work , meditation , breathing exercises and neo-shamanism . The interest in contemporary trance dance in the West is motivated by various goals: relaxation technique , expression of creativity and spirituality , induction of other states of consciousness , entry into other spiritual realities, connection with the "higher self " or archaic layers of the unconscious, promotion of self-healing of the organism, cathartic expression of old “stuck” feelings, training of devotion and reduction of self-control. There are now many seminars and workshops on trance dance, etc. a. offered with live music.
In the area of youth culture , trance-like states can also occur when dancing. In contrast to other forms of trance dance, however, these often have no explicitly religious or spiritual orientation. See also Freetekno , Psytrance or Goa (music) .
literature
- Dirk Patrick Hengst: dance, trance and ecstasy. The ritual roots of creativity. Horlemann, Bad Honnef 2003, ISBN 3-89502-171-7 .
- Kaye Hoffman: dance, trance, transformation. Dianus-Trikont, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-88167-104-8 .
- Kay Hoffman: dance, trance, transcendence. Verlag Andreas Mascha, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-924404-49-9
- Frank Natale: Trance Dance. The dance of life. History, rituals, experiences. Simon & Leutner, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-922389-57-0 ( Edition Herzschlag ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Robert Balz, Gerhard Krause, Gerhard Müller (eds.): TRE - Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Volume 32: "Spurgeon - Taylor". Edition, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 2001, ISBN 3-11-016712-3 . Pp. 644-647
- ↑ Friedrich Seltmann: The Kalang .: An ethnic group on Java and their tribe myth. A contribution to the cultural history of Java. Franz-Steiner, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 978-3-51503-722-8 , pp. 109, 141.
- ↑ Cf. Margaret J. Kartomi: Performance, Music and Meaning of Réyog Ponorogo. In: Indonesia, No. 22 (Southeast Asia Program Publications at Cornell University), October 1976, pp. 84-130
- ↑ Silke Hubrig: African dance: on the possibilities and limits in German dance education. In: Björn Bedey (Ed.): Studies 2002. Diplomica-Verlag, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8324-5550-7 . P. 2, 15