This is what she will be doing in South America from mid-November 1998, in a tour which will take her to Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, Bariloche and Jujuy. I experience a timeless quality, a sense of dancing in the footsteps of my ancestors. I feel connected to myself and to my neighbours, and I feel a lot of joy and gratitude at simply being part of the circle. The steps serve as a kind of mantra, absorbing the mind's chatter and providing a focus, so that even fast dances can facilitate a state of peace and meditation. The beauty of circle dance is that each dancer's experience may be different, and everyone can be welcomed as they are.
Nobody is required to change in order to be accepted.
By simply holding hands with one another, we create a practice space for human society in which we tolerate each other's differences. Of course, when people share movement synchrony their brain waves also tend to synchronise. This gives people a sense of unity with their fellow dancers, which is an essential antidote to the isolation many people feel in modern society. In this safe space many emotions can come into the group, and this is the basis for what I call the inherently therapeutic aspects of circle dance. These dances go directly back to our ancestors' first worship of the natural cycles of the year and the earth, the source of life.