We have entered a time of unprecedented need for peace. While there are many roads to peace, we offer an unusual event called ShadowDance.

WHAT IS THE SHADOW?

Carl Jung’s term, “shadow,” is the side of us we disown, the side of us that we think we should never be. Whatever people do not claim in their own psyches must play out around them—in their families, their communities, and the world. If people suppress their nasty sides, they unconsciously encourage someone in the world to play out this nastiness. If people suppress negativity and approve only of their loving sides, they project this negativity outward, keeping the “good” inside and locating the “bad” in another person or a group. Nations and cultural groups carry opposite energies for each other. The whole world of energies lives inside us. As we claim our shadow side, we actually bring balance to the world.

WHAT IS SHADOWDANCE?

ShadowDance is a ritual movement event that explores opposites, both personally and collectively. The intent of ShadowDance is to foster the balancing of opposites, in the individual, in relationships, and perhaps, in some small way, at the collective level. ShadowDance aims to set consciousness in motion.

Dance is not only a medium for creative expression, theatrical entertainment, or social pleasure. In most intact cultures throughout the world, dance is culturally essential, serving as a mystical tool to move energy. For millennia shamans and mystics have moved energy through dance ceremony. Combined understandings about inner selves, energy shifts, the interconnectedness of the unified field, and tribal dance contributed to the evolution of ShadowDance.

WHO?

ShadowDance is open to everyone who wishes to step past the usual concepts of achieving peace into the larger vision of embracing both sides of the conflict within the individual’s psyche. No dance experience is required.

STRUCTURE

ShadowDance can be structured as a full day or an evening event.

BENEFITS

The benefits of ShadowDance are both tangible and abstract. An individual dancing the opposites within and connecting them to real life situations lives out a tangible experience.

The group may also be stirring energy at a collective level, and the effect of owning opposites may, possibly, be rippling out into the larger field. Quantum physics uses a vivid image that when a butterfly flaps its wings in California, the effect ripples out to Japan. That is, obviously, an abstract experience, and there is no way to verify it. Sometimes a newspaper headline the next day may proclaim the initiation of peace negotiations in Ireland or China. These are synchronicities that may give rise to intriguing questions about a larger web of connectedness.