Dances of Ecstasy

Wednesday 2 March 2005 8:28AM (view full episode)


Woman: In western culture, we've all been taught how to control. I grew up with a Catholic guy. From that religion I did learn to hate myself and I did learn to hate my body, because of that suffering I found what I was looking for in the dance. God is the dance.

David Rutledge: A short excerpt from a new film that's going to be screened on national television this Sunday night. The film's called 'Dances of Ecstasy', and it explores the world of ritual, rhythm and trance. And I do mean the whole world: the film features footage of Sufi dervishes in Turkey, a Yoruba Priestess in Nigeria, shamans in South Korea and the Kalahari desert, and much more.

The film was made over a five-year period by the producer-director team of Michelle Mahrer and Nicole Ma, and I spoke to Michelle Mahrer in Melbourne.

Michelle Mahrer: Well the film is about how different cultures all over the world connect with a divine power through dance and rhythm. And I was very inspired by in contemporary culture I think, the growth of dance in for example, the raves, where young people dance all night and I was just interested to explore how people have been working with trance for many, many years in traditional cultures, and was there a link between the two?

David Rutledge: Well you cover such a wide range of cultures in the film, and presumably you could have made a fascinating documentary just about Sufi dervishes or just about modern trance in the West. Why have you gone for the big picture, cross-cultural approach?

Michelle Mahrer: Because I think what's important is what is common between us. I think dance and rhythm way of connecting with something bigger than ourselves, and you know, what people can call the divine power. And that led me to exploring these different cultures, and I wanted to see what links us, the sort of yearning, or even the way these rituals are accessible to us, the fact that there are whirling dervishes performing in concert halls around the world, the fact that the shaman rituals that we filmed, they very much wanted to communicate their rituals through film, and they wanted the film to be seen. There's some sort of resurgence, like a lot of shamanic rituals are also very much coming back before they were banned for many years in Korea, in different cultures, shamanism was banned. And the fact that there's a resurgence I think there's this sort of calling back, and it's something within all of us if we're just open to it.

David Rutledge: That's interesting, because when we talk about the spiritual aspect of the contemporary dance scene, particularly dance parties, there was I think, this sense back in the early '90s that dance was going to turn out to be almost like a new religious movement, and the dance party phenomenon heralded this new communal spirituality taking form. But since then, I suppose like everything else in the West, it's all become highly commercialised, subject to fashion trends, and I wonder if the spiritual aspect has run out of steam a bit?

Michelle Mahrer: I don't agree. I don't think the spiritual aspect has run out of steam otherwise people wouldn't be going, because they're getting something out of it. Having been to lots of raves myself when we were making the film, there is something that young people are getting from these dance experiences. Where else do young people get together and connect with a sense of tribe, a sense of oneness, which is what I think a lot of spiritual experience is about, being connected to something bigger than ourselves, which is very difficult in our modern culture where we all live in our little family units, and in a more isolated fashion.

David Rutledge: I wonder if there's a sort of incongruity between the medium and the message, if dance is about reaching an altered state through this intense immediate physical experience. You're trying to get a sense of that across via the medium of film, which is how you experience it passively while sitting in a chair. But how do you address that problem? Do you see it as a problem?

Michelle Mahrer: Well the film result is a very sensory film. It's not a traditional documentary, and because of my own dance experience and dance background, I really wanted to take an audience into that experience of trance, and that's why the way the film looks, it's very visual, it's inter-cutting, it's very rhythmic, it's like a very sensory experience, and we've actually been screening the film as part of an event where we show the film and then have a global music dance party. So people get to watch it, and then they get up and dance. So it's actually not such a passive experience. It's a bit different watching it on television.

David Rutledge: Well maybe our Compass viewers on Sunday night will be able to find somewhere open after the program screens and experience it that way.

Michelle Mahrer: Yes, or maybe people who've got home theatres, they can have a few people over and experience it as a group and with the sound loud, that would be great.

David Rutledge: Well you heard the lady, get your friends round on Sunday night for a pyjama dance party. That's film maker Michelle Mahrer, and you can catch Dances of Ecstasy this Sunday night, March 6th, on this week's edition of Compass, ABC-TV at five past ten.

And that's the program for this week. Thanks this week to Noel Debien and Michelle Goldsworthy.


Michelle Mahrer
Filmmaker, Dances of Ecstasy

Further Information

Dances of Ecstasy
A film by Michelle Mahrer and Nicole Ma


David Rutledge