Gabrielle Roth was voted by the members and visitors of Universe Spirit as our May/June Dance Artist of the month.
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Gabrielle Roth is an internationally renowned theater director, philosopher, and recording artist who has created her own form of ecstatic dance. She is the best-selling author of Maps to Ecstasy: A Healing Journey for the Untamed Spirit and Sweat Your Prayers: Movement as Spiritual Practice. Her teachings, for the past thirty-five years have permeated many areas of the culture and included many diverse settings such as schools, hospitals, corporate offices, theaters and growth centers. Her work has been featured in Self, Elle, Mademoiselle, New Age Journal, Body Mind Spirit, Shape and many other national publications. Her award winning musical recordings are on the cutting edge of shamanic trance/dance music. Gabrielle's workshops and retreats have an electric intensity that mates contemporary currents of rock music, modern theater and poetry to the ancient pulse of shamanism. She lives in New York City. |
Quotations:
"To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past, anointing all your parts in a baptism by fire. Sweat burns karma, purifying body and soul. Sweat is an ancient and universal form of self-healing, whether done in the gym, the sauna, or the sweat lodge. I do it on the dance floor. The more you dance, the more you sweat. The more you sweat, the more you pray. The more you pray, the closer you come to ecstasy."
~ Gabrielle Roth"It's like the soul speaks to us in certain repetitive patterns that form a wave of energy. It's like I'm here to surrender my body every day to the spirit of life, to be breathed deeply, held in the breath of God. To let myself go..."
~ Gabrielle Roth" Instead of resisting chaos, I enter into it like a lover, and allow it to show me the way to my truest and deepest self, because in that self I know who I am and I can see very clearly who I am not. So that's been my spiritual path. Dance for me has been everything."
~ Gabrielle Roth"Energy moves in waves. Waves move in patterns. Patterns move in rhythms. A human being is just that; energy, waves, patterns, rhythms.Nothing more. Nothing less. A dance."
~ Gabrielle Roth
The Sweat your Prayers Program:
The Moving Center School was founded in 1987 with one goal: to promote freedom and well-being through the 5Rhythmsâ„¢ movement meditation practice.
We live in a time when so many of us yearn for release from our tired old patterns, and relief from the exhaustion of racing through our lives without refuge or rest. This practice allows us to move with and through the tight spots of our physical, emotional and mental terrain until we arrive organically at the still place inside. In the words of our founder, Gabrielle Roth, "we move our bodies to quiet our minds."
Our programs are varied but the work is the same: to move until we are moved, until we know that we are divine spirit in flesh. We do this through the timeless expression of movement, in an open community of kindred spirits that come together regularly to dance, sweat, learn, play, and be continuously amazed by ourselves and each other.
This work is fun, profound, powerful and accessible to everyone from children to elders, from the able-bodied and strong to the most fragile and vulnerable.
Books and Video:
 * Sweat Your PrayersLest you think that spirituality is relegated to the higher mind, Sweat Your Prayers is a reminder that our bodies are indeed cradles of the soul. Physical movement can be a potent medium for spiritual awakening, according to Gabrielle Roth, who has dedicated much of her life to teaching and exploring the holy rewards of dance. The soul has five natural rhythms, explains Roth: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and stillness. She teaches us how to identify our natural rhythms, but she also encourages us to practice dancing through all five rhythms in order to become more whole, evolved, and complete beings. |
 * Connections: The 5 Threads of Intuitive WisdomA powerful guide to awakening intuition and using it to create a fulfilling life. Coincidence. Miracles. Divine Intervention. What many people refer to as once-in-a-lifetime occurrences, Gabrielle Roth explains is actually intuition. By weaving the five threads of intuitive wisdom into our lives, it is possible to live secure in the knowledge of who we are, where we're going, and how we're going to get there. It's just a matter of stripping away the things that block, distract, and suppress natural instinct. |
 * Maps to Ecstasy: A Healing Journey for the Untamed SpiritIn this classic exploration of the psyche, Gabrielle Roth takes us on a healing journey through the terrain of the body, heart, mind, soul and spirit -- moving us from the limits of the ego to the expanses of the soul and initiating us into the five sacred powers: being, loving, knowing, seeing, and healing. |
 * Maps to Ecstasy : Teachings of an Urban ShamanMaps to Ecstasy initiates us into the five sacred rhythms inherent in all our actions and illuminates the five life cycles that lead us to enlightenment. We awaken our latent shamanic powers as we reconnect to primal knowledge through exercises, dance, song, poetry, meditation, theater, and ritual discovering how shamanic principles can be incorporated here and now in our contemporary, urban lives. Gabrielle Roth shows us how to turn our lives into art and how to discover the dancer, singer, poet, actor, and healer within. |
 * The Power WaveThe Power Wave is the next step in Gabrielle Roth’s revolutionary ecstatic dance series: a high-velocity, nonstop celebration of the human body in motion. Pumping up the beat to maximum, Gabrielle guides you through five universal rhythms that flow through our lives and world. You join dancers of all sizes, shapes, and age groups – whirling, sweating, transforming – for a super high-energy workout you can explore and practice with, in your home or dance space, alone or with friends. |
 * Ecstatic DanceThe Gabrielle Roth Video Collection, viewers join Gabrielle for three complete dance workouts, each with its own special benefits: The Wave – The original classic on video introduces Gabrielle Roth’s revolutionary system of moving meditation. Teaches five core rhythms can catalyze and heal your entire being. The Inner Wave – A meditative trance dance journey to the stillpoint within. For calming the mind and body, and creating peace in our lives. The Power Wave – This high-intensity dance workout puts your psyche in motion and helps trigger spontaneous states of creative, intuitive power. |
Related Links:
http://www.gabrielleroth.com/
http://www.movingcenterschool.com/
http://www.ravenrecording.com/
http://www.5rhythmsuk.com/