What is Sacred Circle Dancing?

The Origins:

Sacred Circle Dance is a worldwide movement originating from the work of Professor Bernard Wosien, a German ballet instructor and Master Teacher at Munich University. He believed that our earliest and most profound impulse to replicate the creative powers that we sensed within ourselves and our world was through movement. These early “dances” enabled us to identify with the eternal round of creative force in the cosmos while acknowledging the rhythms and cycles of daily life in community. He traveled extensively throughout Europe seeking to retrieve and preserve these early dance forms, specifically in the small, often oppressed villages that continued to hold the dances as sacred. He referred to his work as “heilige Tanze” or the highest or holy form of dance.

Professor Wosien brought his repertoire to The Findhorn Foundation in Scotland in 1975 forming an eager troupe of Sacred Circle Dance students. From this initial group, Sacred Circle Dance spread to over 30 countries. It continues to grow in newly choreographed dances drawn from Wosien’s original retrieved “alphabet”, and most importantly through the current work of his daughter Maria Gabriella and Sacred Circle Dance anthropologist Laura Shannon.

“We dance with reverence and respect for those dances we remember. The ancient dance forms, thus renewed by our creative attention and participation, nourish our understanding of the body as sacred.” -- Bernard Wosien

The Application:

Sacred Circle Dance offers an integrative approach to healing, relaxation and to some, a deeply, moving spiritual experience. It differs from folk dance through the sacred intention that is held for each dance. In circles, lines and spirals we join hands to learn simple village dances to music from around the world. Through our dancing energy is activated. We consciously intend this energy to heal ourselves, one another our planet earth and the people, places and situations throughout the world in need of healing grace. Each dance offers its individual blessing and we open to receive it. It is believed that the impulse to dance is encoded in our DNA. When we dance in Sacred Circles the encoded message is activated, we remember.