Trance Dance- A Path to Knowledge

by Leo Rutherford

Trance Dance: A woman dancer wrote to me of her experience at one of my workshops:

(Saturday) "I remember nothing of the trance dance and was quite surprised when my friend told me I had danced for a long time (over an hour). I thought it was two minutes. I now realise I was dancing the abuse out, no wonder my head was burning. No wonder I was excited. I knew the next day was going to be even more amazing.!" (

Sunday) "This day I will never forget for the rest of my life." "Again in the dance I was gone but I remember coming to and someone had the rain stick near me. I thought if he comes any closer I'll have all his clothes off. Wow! Then this energy was buzzing through me and around me. I stood there thinking- I've got enough sexual energy to make love with every man in this room and start again It was amazing and exciting. Mine to keep forever......

Thank you all for making this possible. It was just beautiful, the drumming, the trust, the love and the warmth, the light and the fun. Everything was just as it should be."

Extracts from other letters... Being able to express the inexpressable has changed the way I see myself. To have been able to make a noise, scream, rage, grieve, and recognise my goddess has been invaluable. Instead of victim I am now a person who gave it back where it belongs, finding the beauty they and I denied for so long in the process.

.....my relationship with my parents has been revolutionised: it's really evolved into a more honest and appreciative state.

I feel generally much stronger and more in control of my life and have stopped smoking after 9 years! I also find myself choosing honesty over acceptance, which feels great.......

I know I am part of the human race and more accepting of my foibles and neuroses and have to a large extent regained my incredible sense of humour having lost layers of shame.

Overall I still find trance-dance the best way for me to get to grips with my issues. It's the only within the dance that I feel fully alive and in my power. ...it's the dance that brings everything to life. .... and to see the amazing courage and honesty that comes out and the transformations that take place.

I first encountered the trance dance in 1984 when I attended the European Association of Humanistic Psychology Conference which took place that year in Guildford, Surrey. One of the sessions was trance dancing with Dr Jacques Donnars (of Paris) and Professor Arnold Keyserling (Of Vienna). They needed music and I supplied them with my ghetto blaster and a tape of Olatunji's Drums of Passion.

What I experienced at the session was extraordinary. In quite a short time demure people who one might expect to be shy and inhibited were dancing with wild abandon. Professor Keyserling kept telling me to turn the music up louder and I remember wrestling with my machine to somehow extract a bit more volume. In those days I was somewhat more inhibited than I am now so I waited before trying the dance myself. Finally I dared to have a go. Jacques told me to keep my eyes closed and then he held my head firmly and turned it around a few times and then spun my whole body. Soon I found myself dancing on a world which tilted by about 30 degrees. When I began to fall someone would support me and I spun around in this crazy world dancing wildly until in a moment of panic I blinked my eyes open. The spell was broken as I saw the dirty concrete floor and people's legs.

They called it Terpsichore Trance Therapy, or TTT for short. Terpsichore is the Greek Goddess of the dance. This experience made me determined to follow up and learn more and this I was able to do when one of Dr Donnars' trainees came to London and gave a workshop. I then began to experiment with the dance myself and learn more by trial and error.

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