5RHYTHMS
A dynamic route to awareness
Once your body surrenders to movement, your soul remembers its dance.
— Gabrielle Roth,
Sweat Your Prayers
5Rhythms unites mind, body and spirit through the spontaneous creativity of movement.
Reaching across all languages, cultures and age groups, it transforms suffering into art, art into awareness, and awareness into action.
These rhythms help us navigate our ever-changing lives by exploring our inner and outer landscapes.
Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness describe, define and help us recognize how energy moves. Birth, death, sex, tsunamis, volcanoes, tides, work, traffic, relationships, inspiration, family, money… the rhythms are in it all.
FLOWING
This Rhythm is the basket that holds all other Rhythms.
The feminine principle, moving on the earth in circular motions, no beginning, no end.
Inhale. Let it in.
Ground yourself in this flesh, in this body, receptive to its needs, its sensations, its hungers.
Feel the delight of movement. Listen to what is revealed. Trust your feet as they lead you home.
STACCATO
The power of direction, boundaries, form and structure.
The dance of our bones: angles, planes, opening, closing.
Exhale. Let it out.
The element of fire rules staccato.
The hips are its gateway.
The masculine principle in action, intention set in motion.
This is where we find self-expression.
CHAOS
Form and function fly away at the intersection of feminine and masculine. The realm of chaos is one of expansion, possibility, creativity.
Out of control, out of bounds, over the edge.
Let go.
The gateway to chaos: the head. Its element: water.
Water in all its forms: liquid, steam, ice, vapour, mist… We are made of so much water.
LYRICAL
Connection. Essence.
The dance of spirit: ease, fullness, joy.
Complety ourselves.
The element of air rules lyrical.
The arms are its gateway.
Our true nature moving freely.
The emergence of our authentic dance.
STILLNESS
Breath in movement.
The dance of being just as we are.
Finding the balance point. The center.
The element of ether rules stillness.
The breath is its gateway.
Vision, purpose.
Soul-full beings embodied.
For over 30 years, Gabrielle Roth worked to heal the deadening split between spirit and flesh through her own form of ecstatic dance, the 5Rhythms. Her international institute, The Moving Center/5Rhythms Global, continues to oversee the teaching of her work throughout the world.
A renowned theater director, movement innovator, recording artist, and best-selling author of Maps to Ecstasy, Sweat Your Prayers, and Connections, her award-winning recordings were on the cutting-edge of shamanic, trance-dance music. Thousands of elders and young people, dancers and “dance phobics,” those who can show off, and those who can barely show up, those with bad backs, bum knees, and wounded hearts, have all responded to the drumbeat of Gabrielle’s call.
Her teachings have also given birth to a non-profit organization called the 5Rhythms Reach Out, which transforms chaos and crisis into connection and creativity. The 5RRO offers the 5Rhythms movement practice to kids, seniors and the institutionalized in diverse communities all over the world.
