Temenos Dance Collective
Celebrating conscious dance in all its forms
HOW IT WORKS
The Temenos Dance Collective is a first of its kind multi-disciplinary conscious dance project set up in 2023 to provide dancers with a space to explore conscious movement in all its forms.
Rather than focusing on one specific modality the Collective enjoys a range of conscious movement practices. There are no limitations and we are as comfortable hosting a conscious raves as we a formal dance class with a professional teacher.
Our aim is to be an innovator in the field of conscious movement. We strive to bring down barriers and limitations, and to provide a safe and holistic environment for dancers, of all levels.
In addition to our own schedule of movement sessions, we regularly collaborate with facilitators and DJs from across the spectrum of conscious movement including, but not exclusively, 5Rhythms, Contact Improvisation, and Ecstatic Dance.
We also have a membership program for our regular dancers which gives them discounts to classes and workshops throughout the calendar year, as well as one free Members dance each month.
Our sessions are held every Friday evening at the Old School Rooms in Clapton, and we also host an extended Saturday session once a month to support deeper explorations.
Our weekly Friday sessions include:
Movement Playground - an energetic, connected and uplifting dance that encourages dancers to explore movement through play and interaction with others.
Movement Journey - a deeper, more exploratory movement session that supports dancers to engage with their inner landscape and find new ways to move and express themselves.
Movement Class - a class hosted by a professional dance instructor with a specific area of expertise. Teachers are invited to share their knowledge and passion for movement with our community.
Deep Space - a unique restorative meditation and movement session that offers dancers a chance to explore movement from a place of stillness.
Saturday Workshops - our workshop program is engaging and exciting, and offers dancers more time and space to dive deeply into a range of movement modalities.
Check the Tickets tab for more details.
WHAT DOES THE WORD TEMENOS MEAN?
In ancient Greece a temenos was a sacred enclosure or precinct - a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god. It has also been described as a sacred circle where a person can be themselves without fear and where drama can be performed for the purpose of spiritual, emotional and psychological transformation. For ancient Greeks the purpose of the temenos was to have a space that was sacred and that would not be polluted with daily concerns and interferences. The boundary of the temenos served to both contain the energy and protect it.
More recently Carl Jung encouraged us to understand the temenos as an emotional and psychological space as well as a physical one. He described temenos as “a means of protecting the centre of the personality from being drawn out and from being influenced from the outside. It is within such a space that important and unruly unconscious contents can be safely brought into the light of consciousness.
The Temenos Dance Collective seeks to create and foster safe spaces (temenos') to congregate and move in. Environments where time and space can be set aside so that, collectively, we can reinvigorate and replenish and develop a deeper connection to ourselves, our fellow human beings and to the life force that runs through the universe. A temenos cannot be bought, rather it must be cultivated. It must be developed over time through conscious intention and careful work.
