The Freeing Power of Dance

Freeing Ourselves Through Dance

By Barbara Sauvé



Yes I believe we can free ourselves through dance and movement. And here’s why!

A Profound Story of Dancing Towards Freedom

There is a beautiful and powerful martial art dance known as Capoeira that is gaining popularity worldwide. This dance has come to us from Brazil although its origins appear to be African. There is some vagueness and uncertainty in the history books about its exact origin and whether the dance was actually practiced in Africa or was developed in Brazil based on dance and movements that originated in Africa. For many years Capoeira had to be practiced in the strictest secrecy so some of the information about it may have been lost.
Capoeira is a martial art dance that freed many people from the most deplorable conditions of slavery in Brazil. According to When the African people were brought to Brazil as slaves starting in 1500, they gradually began to develop and practice a deadly martial art known as Capoeira. The movements were created and disguised as a dance so that no one would suspect that the slaves were actually learning a deadly martial art. The main instrument used in this dance is the berimbau, a bow like instrument with a single string, which can be played in a variety of ways to accompany the dance. This instrument could also be created to be a deadly weapon disguised as a musical instrument. Through dance and music, many of these African people in Brazil fought their way to freedom. For many years after that, Capoeira was banned, made illegal in Brazil. People who were caught learning and practicing Capoeira were incarcerated and subjected to horrible beatings. Fortunately this beautiful Dance did survive underground and by the 1930’s it was legalized as a legitimate sport and dance. In fact it is now Brazil’s official national sport. Its’ popularity is quickly spreading worldwide these days. There are many schools of Capoeira right here in Toronto. It remains today as a beautiful and graceful dance and a deadly martial art. This is a truly literal example of how dance can free people from the worst possible conditions.

Are We in Bondage?

None of us are obviously in that kind of desperate situation.
But we may feel trapped in other ways. Perhaps we feel trapped in old emotional baggage. We may be imprisoned in old dysfunctional patterns and behaviours. Perhaps we are trapped by ego concerns or by minds that love to obsess and worry and create anxiety.
Our Souls crave freedom of expression. Our Spirits crave freedom. And yet here we are in this physical realm perhaps feeling limited by the duties and obligations and stresses of our lives here on this planet. We might be feeling limited by our physical bodies that need special care and treatment.
Many of us have been repressed, or had our creative spirits suppressed or denied in some way through maybe strict upbringing, various institutions, society, schools, workplaces. These institutions have all imposed their own “rules of living or being” onto us. Very few people have true emotional, spiritual and creative freedom. There have been many restrictions placed on what we should or shouldn’t feel and experience. There are religious traditions that attempt to deny the body’s needs. Desires of the flesh are sometimes treated as sinful and the goal is complete denial and repression of the physical needs and desires.
The “problem” (as I see it) with that kind of belief is that the physical body is the temple of the Soul. As a Temple, the body needs to be cared for, to be cherished and to be honored in its divine task of housing the Soul.
One of the most wonderful ways to care for the body is to allow it to move and dance.
There is an old Sufi saying “God respects us when we work, but loves us when we dance”.

To dance is to celebrate the body that we have been blessed with.
To dance is to connect with the Soul.
To dance is to free the Spirit.
To dance is to enter fully into our physicalness, into the pleasures and joys of being alive and in the body.
To dance is to say Thank You to the Creator who made it possible for us to experience ourselves as physical beings.

Now when I speak about Dance, I am talking about the movement that comes from the depths of our Being. I’m talking about the movement that is created by our own inner pulsing rhythms and fueled by the deepest desires and longings of the Soul to be freed from its bondage. I am talking about the Dance that lives deep within each one of us, just waiting to be freed.


There are many kinds of dance – we can go to many schools of dance – we can learn Samba or Ballroom dance. We can learn the very sensual isolations and movements of belly dance. We can learn tap dance or ballet or line dance. There is no end to the type of dancing we can learn. We can study many forms of dance. And it is all fun and wonderful. All of these dances will likely help us feel better in one way or another. We become more fit; it’s fun to socialize with others through dance. We would probably feel more coordinated by learning these steps and movements. This is the type of dance where somebody else teaches us and guides us to do it correctly, when we follow external clues as to how to move, when we “train” the body in certain ways. All of these ways of dancing can certainly strengthen us and prepare us to move into a deeper kind of dance.

The Dance that I want to refer to here has no “correct” way of being done, has no prescribed steps or movements. It is the Dance that emerges from the depths of the Heart and Soul. It is the Dance that expresses the pain and joy and longings and love that emerge from the deepest, most profound place in our own individual being. Just as none of us look alike or talk alike or have the same fingerprint, so to is the Dance that occurs through our bodies and expresses who we are, different in every being.
This true concept of Dance (capital D) is the Dance that takes us right out of our heads, right out of our thoughts and worries and anxieties. This Dance brings us totally into the moment and this present moment is the only place where the physical body can exist.
When we are trapped in the regrets of the past or the anxieties of the future we are in bondage. Only by being fully present in the moment can we be free. It is in the moment, beyond the obsessing of the mind, that Body and Spirit unite as one.

When we allow our own unique rhythm to emerge, when we move to the pulse of our own Heartbeat, then we free ourselves from bondage. We create the opening and the space for the Earth and the Divine to meet in us, to merge through us, to move us, to dance us. Then we are free.

So how do we get there? How do we allow the Dance to move through us, to move us?

For me the most logical “map” to follow in the Dance towards freedom is through the Seven Major Chakras – the energy centres of the body.

The Dance begins by getting out of our heads and into our feet.

As we begin to move our feet and connect with the pulsating energy of Mother Earth, we can draw that energy up into our legs and Root Chakra (tailbone and genitals). The more in touch we are with Mother Earth the more we can experience and embrace our own physicalness. In this place of connecting deeply with our own humanness, we enter into deeper communion with all beings including the animal kingdom. Dancing and moving through the Root Chakra re-connects us with our own animal, instinctual nature. Animals know instinctively if danger (such as earthquakes or tsunamis) is approaching and they know to move onto safer ground. As we connect more with our own animal nature, we will regain our own instinctual abilities. Once our own animal nature is freed, we become literally unable to cage any animal. We become unable to tolerate any kind of cruelty to animals.

As we draw the energy up into our Sacral Chakra, the emotional centre and the centre of sexuality and sensuality, and allow the Dance to begin to flow from the pelvis, the movement will begin to clear out those old trapped emotions. The more we allow the Dance to emerge from the pelvis, we free our sexual energy which is our life force. Ultimately that is the energy that rises up through the spine, through the Crown Chakra and invites the Divine to enter and move through us.

As we allow that Dance to move up into the Solar Plexus, our personal power centre, we free our own warrior spirit. We free ourselves to take our rightful place in this world. And the real bonus is that allowing the Dance and energy to move through here, we may find that digestive disorders begin to clear up.
And we need have no fear that we may misuse all this Power because we are going to allow our dance to continue its sacred journey up into the Heart and our power will be tempered by Love.

By allowing our movement and Dance to move up into the Heart, we can open the Heart and free it of pain and grief. When the Heart is open and free, then we can open up to the Divine Love that is always there for us. That Divine Source of Love never abandons us, but we may abandon it when our Hearts are closed in pain or grief and nothing can get in. When we dance from our Heart centre, everything we do is tempered by Love and Compassion.

Sometimes our Throat and our Jaw get tight and rigid with unexpressed words or creativity that is trapped inside. We need to remember that the Throat Chakra is the energy centre where the Soul expresses itself through words, through creativity. We need to allow a gentle dance to move through the neck and throat and jaw to free all of those tight muscles. And to remember ourselves as Creative Beings.

As we allow the Dance to move gently and quietly up into the Third Eye, centre of intuition and Higher Wisdom we get to Remember and Dance with the Wise Being part of ourselves.

By the time we allow the Dance to move up into the Crown Chakra we are opening up to allow the Divine to Dance through us.

As we allow the Divine to fully enter through the Crown Chakra, it will move through us and move us in ways we hadn’t even considered. All we need to do at that point is Surrender to the Dance of the Divine.
And once we have Danced ourselves into Union with the Divine, we will have freed our bodies and our minds so that we can be open channels for the Divine.
Then we allow the Divine to move through us down through our feet and back into the Earth.

We become Channels of light, expressions of the Divine. And that is where we find our freedom.

And Dance can do all that!!