User:Dance Researcher/sandbox/freedomDANCE

freedomDANCE is a practice and a school of dance meditation and conscious movement founded by Alex Svoboda in 2009.

Fundamental to the practice is the notion of freedomDANCE cycle that repeats a natural flow of energy found in all areas of life through gradual activations, staying at the peak and settling. The school has trained over 50 teachers and around 30 are actively teaching.

It draws from the modern body of work focused on dance as a tool of self-exploration and personal growth, including 5Rhythms and the work of Anna Halprin, humanistic psychology and transpersonal psychology and incorporates more traditional knowledge found in Indian philosophy, Ayurvedic medicine, yoga, shamanism and martial arts.

The practice
The practice of the 5Rhythms is said by Gabrielle Roth to put the body in motion in order to still the mind. The five rhythms (in order) are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The 5Rhythms, when danced in sequence, are known as a "Wave." A typical Wave takes about an hour to dance.

Longer workshops may, according to The Dancing Path, explore emotion, the cycle of life, the ego, relationships and spiritual vision.

The 5Rhythms Maps
The work is taught through a series of maps that explore the terrain of the inner and outer worlds of individuals, their relationships to others and the space around them. The maps offer a soul journey by exploring embodiment, emotions, the life cycle, the psyche, and the archetypes. The rhythms offer understanding of people's innate powers – being, loving, knowing, seeing and healing.

The first map, "Waves" teaches embodiment of the five distinct rhythms. To embody the rhythms means to access the deep internal wisdom that human bodies contain. The "Heartbeat" map teaches how people have embodied and how they express the emotions of fear, anger, sadness, joy and compassion; while the "Cycles" map provides insight and understanding about how one has internalized conditioning and relationships throughout the life cycle, specifically in the stages of birth, childhood, puberty, maturity and death. Insight and understanding of the ego is delivered through the psyche map, "Mirrors".

Roth drew a circular "Medicine Mandala" that related each rhythm to an emotion, a stage of life, a way of perceiving, and an aspect of the self.

Schools and teachers
Roth founded The Moving Center in New York in 1977 as a base for her workshops, and to train and develop teachers. 5Rhythms Global was founded in 2013 as the international Institute training 5Rhythms teachers worldwide. The 5Rhythms Teachers Association was founded in 2007 as a professional association serving the continuing education of accredited 5Rhythms teachers. The 5Rhythms movement spread worldwide, and in 2017 there were 396 certified teachers and SpaceHolders in 50+ countries.

Reception
Evgeniya Krylova, writing on yogajournal.ru, highlights the value of what is taught in freedomDANCE classes for daily life, specifically, for having the resilience to continue in the face of the challenges.

From Inna Gulyaeva's book (2015, p. 55): "Обучение свободе жить без психофизиологических блоков, иметь расслабленное тело, умеющее вовремя сконцентрироваться, а потом снять напряжение, возможно через такие тан- цевальные практики, как 5 ритмов Габриэлы Рот или FreedomDance Алекса Никифо- рова. О 5 ритмах я рассказывала в предыдущей своей книге «Арт-коучинг. Как женщине игра- ючи изменить свою жизнь за 3 месяца».

Практика FreedomDance позволяет вам в танце совершить открытие, трансформацию и интеграцию телесного опыта в вашу картину мира. Это позволяет вам мягко обучаться через тело, лучше узнавать себя, свои желания и потребности. Вы начинаете понимать себя, свои возможности и ограничения, уметь принимать то, что изменить невозможно, и менять то, что реально изменить."

Research
Academics working in mental health and other fields are starting to carry out research about the 5Rhythms. The Mental Health Foundation, a UK charity published the 'Dancing for Living Report' describing a group of women's experience of 5Rhythms dance and the effects on their emotional wellbeing. The 5Rhythms have been the subject of a number of PhD theses.