Dancing Down the Moon

Sylvan's Infernal Playlist

First off, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy solar return yesterday.  Much obliged.  :) 

Secondly, I've had a number of requests to make my Ecstatic Dance mixes public, so I have decided to start doing that every month (along with any others I create for whatever purpose). 

My favorite thing about creating dance mixes is that any kind of music can be ecstatic.  Using a fairly simple wave starting with low intensity, peaking toward the end of the middle, then bringing the tempo back down to a meditative end, you can use any artist or genre that you like.  What trances out one dancer won't move another, and what gets you going one day might not the next; it's all about letting yourself express whatever your body is feeling to the music you hear rather than thinking, "Damn, I hate this song."  You find yourself getting into some surprising places with music that you would never have thought you could have a spiritual experience to.  (I've long maintained that Madonna is a shaman.)

I like to mix popular tracks with more typical trancey and ambient stuff and throw in something surprising or silly here and there.  This month's mix started out with the birthday mix I used in 2008; I wanted to start with where I was then, and build on it to something new.  (It's always interesting to see what you were dancing to a year ago.) It covered a wide range of emotions, but I was pleased overall with the flow.

1 ~ Feasting With Panthers - Bombay Dub Orchestra
2 ~ Dhan Dhan - Mantra Girl
3 ~ Fireflies - Owl City
4 ~ Kamanche Groove - Drumspyder
5 ~ Funhouse - Pink
6 ~ Serenity - Delerium
7 ~ Send Your Love (Dave Aude Remix) - Sting
8 ~ My Vision - Seal
9 ~ Sweet Lullaby - Deep Forest
10 ~ Little Plastic Castle - Ani DiFranco
11 ~ So Unsexy - Alanis Morissette
12 ~ Glitter in the Air - Pink
13 ~ Whispers of Rumi - Dolphina (from the Goddess Workout)

And here's another recent mix that I really liked; notice that it has far less pop, and an overall Middle Eastern bent, which is of course my favorite sort of bent. 

1 - A Different Space - Bob Holroyd
2 - Gauranga Karuna - Rasa
3 - Forever Changes - ZKT
4 - Mokote - Madeka
5 - Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
6 - Volare - Gipsy Kings
7 - Assam - James Asher
8 - African Drug - Bob Holroyd
9 - Inta Omri (DJ Mix) - Elie Attieh
10 - Dream of Me - Anggun
11 - Rahda Ramana - Tulku
12 - Fearless - Cyndi Lauper
13 - Latika's Theme - Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack

The Spirit of Nia

Last night I attended the Spirit of Nia tour event here in Austin, a special Nia session and talk led by Nia founders Debbie Rosas and Carlos Rosas.  It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  I've posted a sort of recap on Dancing Down the Moon (I wasn't sure how to classify it so I just put it there and linked from here to avoid cluttering up people's RSS feeds.).

Read all about it here!

Seed Post #9: Dance

I was in high school when I first realized I loved to dance.

Our school district required a certain number of physical education credits, but if you were in the marching band or a sport, you could get out of taking actual P.E.  I found this incredibly unfair--my choice was either join band or run laps?  Neither was at all appealing.

Luckily I discovered another option:  something called "Dance P.E."  All the girls who wanted to be on the drill team took the class, as did pretty much every other non-band, non-sports girl.  Several of my friends were taking it too, and I thought surely it had to be better than being forced to play volleyball with the boys. 

I had a blast.  Everything we did--even square dancing--came naturally and happily to me.  I learned to waltz, I learned what jazz hands are, I learned how to choreograph and choose music for performances.  For a young woman whose success had always been mental, this was earth-shaking and strange. 

I came dangerously close to trying out for drill team, too, but I couldn't overcome the basic truth that I was too fat.  The drill team at our school won awards and was famous for its high kick routines, and while I could learn choreography with remarkable speed for an awkward chubby girl, there was no way they would let me into a group that wore thigh-high skirts and did splits on the football field.  Instead of working harder and trying to get in better shape, I did what would become my pattern throughout life:  I gave up. 

I spent the next three years watching the team perform with bitter jealous longing in my heart.  The girls who made the team had taken dance lessons from childhood, and had perfected their big vacant smiles and big hairdos.  I don't think many of them really had a passion for dance; it was just something they were expected to do, as the white, upper-middle-class popular girls whose parents had dragged them to recitals and classes all their lives.  I didn't want to dance to encourage school spirit, or to show off my long legs.  I didn't care about competitions.  I wanted to dance because, even at fifteen, I knew there was something there.