Trance Dance for Trans Communities

Trance dance is a community ritual of spiritual liberation and transformation. Through healing sounds and rhythms, breathing techniques, and the space and support to express yourself freely, participants embark on an inner embodied journey that leads them to ecstatic states of consciousness. Using a blindfold to remove outer stimuli, you will be guided to tap into and express your inner intelligence, creating a new language beyond the limitations of our current excessively gendered modes of expression. As someone who has regularly done trance dance and who is transgender myself, I feel that trance dance can be an especially important tool for healing in trans communities. Since trans people are routinely scrutinized and judged (including by ourselves) in our bodily performance, trance dance gives us the opportunity to block out the gaze of others and surrender to our innate creative expression in a supportive environment free of judgment. Since it can be challenging for trans people to fully be in our bodies—as well as for us to be able to transcend the limitations of the bodily experience—trance dance can allow us to be present and grounded in our bodies in new ways, as well as having experiences of transcendence beyond the material plane. Further, since trans people have been generally subject to a lifetime of trauma and rejection, trance dance affords us a supportive and cathartic space to begin to release layers of that stored pain. Please join us in this unique experience and bring a blindfold and bottle of water.