Deora Dé The 5 Rhythms® Dance Practice

History of the 5 Rhythms®

Gabrielle Gabrielle Roth has developed the 5 Rhythms® Movement Practice through a lifetime of study in dance, theatre and the healing arts.

"My work is a marriage of art and healing meant to catalyse wholeness through dance, song, poetry, ritual and meditation. I have learned through suffering and experimentation how to transform daily life into sacred art." (Roth)

Over the years she has developed her work as a healing art and meditation practice.

Gabrielle Roth trained in classical ballet as a child and continued to train in modern dance through her college years. The resurgence of an old knee injury ended her training in modern dance. This occurrence touched into a depression that Gabrielle had suffered through her teenage years, as she learnt to grapple with her body image and emerging sexuality within a Catholic school setting. At that time she began to battle with anorexic tendencies, isolation and depression. At the time she discovered the power of rock and roll as her saviour. This time she discovered the famous Eselen Institute in California and as happened to many before her this became a life-changing course of action. There she met Fritz Perls the founder of Gestalt Therapy. Perls recognised the healing power of dance and hired Gabrielle to teach dance to his Eselen groups.

For the next ten years Gabrielle had opportunities to witness thousands of people dancing and holding their life stories in their bodies. She saw the ways that people hold their breath, the ways fear emerges as people struggle for the 'right' way to dance and how little connection most people have with their bodies. Through their use of dance she saw how people could break out of many of these fixed patterns and begin to live more embodied, full lives.

"Everyday I was discovering that if you just set people in motion, they'll heal themselves" ( Roth )

Over the following years Gabrielle undertook more intensive study with Oscar Ichazo a Chilean psycho-spiritual teacher who founded the Arica school for spiritual development. Gabrielle developed a combination of all she had experienced and learned at the Eselen Institute and with Oscar Ichazo and began to put form and shape to the 5 Rhythms®.

The 5 Rhythms® is a simple movement practice designed to release the dancer that lives in everybody. Shape, size, age, limitations or experience of dance are not important, anyone can practice the 5 Rhythms®. All that is required is a willingness to be present and open to the experience that will unfold. To find your dancer is to find yourself at your most fluid and creative level. Whilst the practice itself is the essence of simplicity, it has the power to catalyse deep healing and creative expression.

Gabrielle has laid the 5 Rhythms as 4 maps, namely Waves, Heartbeat, Cycles and Mirrors.

The 5 Rhythms® are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The rhythms are combined to create different movement mediation practices, one of which is the "Waves". This is the first step on the 5 rhythms path. It is the ability to be in a physical body and to learn to enjoy being in your body however it is.

In this practise rather than having steps to follow, you the dancer, find that each rhythm is a different energy field in which you discover your own expression and choreography, thus stretching your imagination and intuition as well as your physical body. Each rhythm can awaken energies that can help you to separate yourself from your conditional responses to life. You can expect to meet different and sometimes unknown aspects of yourself as your dance unfolds and your practice of the rhythms deepens over time.

"Heartbeat" is the map of the emotional aspect of our lives. We learn how fear, anger, sadness, joy and compassion have shaped our lives to date.

"Cycles" allows us to trace the journey of our lives through the stages of being born, being a toddler, adolescence, adulthood and old age to death.

"Mirrors" give us the opportunity to see how our minds control our lives and the different ego characters we have developed in order to make our lives feel safe and secure. We find ways to loosen the grip of these egos and live lives based on a fluid response to the issues we face as human beings.

The rhythms are the foundation of Gabrielle's body of work, a series of healing maps for the body, heart, mind and spirit that provide a lifetime of self-discovery and a path to awakening.

She has written three books about the work, Maps to Ecstasy, Sweat Your Prayers and Connections.

Check her website: www.gabrielleroth.com