What are the 5Rhythms®?
The 5Rhythms comprise simple movement practice designed to release the dancer that lives in everybody, no matter what shape, size, age limitation and experience. To find your dance is to find yourself, at your most fluid and creative level. While the practice itself is the essence of simplicity, it has the power to catalyze deep healing and creative expression. The primary teaching of this work is: If you put the psyche in motion, it will heal itself.
The five rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. They come together to create the Wave, a movement meditation practice. Rather than having steps to follow, each rhythm is a different energy field in which you find your own expression and choreography, thereby stretching your imagination as well as your body. Each rhythm is a teacher and you can expect to meet different and sometimes unknown aspect of yourself as your dance unfolds and your practice of the rhythms deepens over time.
The rhythms are the foundation of Gabrielle Roth’s body of work, a series of healing maps for the body, heart mind, soul and spirit that provide a lifetime of self-discovery and a path to awakening. The 5Rhythms practice starts you on that journey and is the place to which you will always return.
What happens on the dance floor?
In every class or workshop, there is always a wide range of experience in the 5Rhythms- from first-timers to certified Wave ‘aficionados‘. In any given class, the teacher will be following the energy in the room. So, while the essential map is one of five rhythms, the teacher might take the class trough the entire Wave or focus on just one rhythm or one facet of a rhythm.
The rhythms themselves are gateways to literally thousands of different movement landscapes. Like the body, they are alive and designed to catalyzed the dancer’s movement expression in the moment. You are different every time you walk into the room, so is the group and so is your teacher. Therefore, each class holds completely unique possibilities.
How do I start?
• Go at your own pace
• Be responsible for your own body (stay aware of injuries and limitations)
• Keep your eyes open to stay aware of others
• Dance barefoot or dance shoes only – no socks on the dance floor
• Move how you feel and stay open to changing
• Know that everything that is alive has a dance; find and express yours
• Enjoy yourself (Excessive seriousness may slow you down)
5RHYTHMS ® – at the Wightman Ballroom in Squirrel Hill
Address: 5604 Solway Street, Pittsburgh PA 15217 – 3rd Floor Ballroom
Exchange: $20 (pre-registration is encouraged)
Alyssa will spin Waves®, holding space for this class with minimal instruction.
A 5Rhythms Sweat® begins with a gentle warm-up and demonstration followed by an unguided Wave where the music moves you and your body is the teacher.
This Sweat is offered as part of the 5Rhythms Teacher in Training mentorship program.
Alyssa is mentored by Kierra Foster Ba of NYC.
Created by Gabrielle Roth and practiced by tens of thousands worldwide, 5Rhythms® is a philosophy, perspective, performance art and a dynamic movement practice rooted in the principle that if you put the psyche in motion it will heal itself. Movement is both the medicine and the metaphor, reaching across all languages, cultures and age groups to transform suffering into art, art into awareness, and awareness into action. Wherever the 5Rhythms are practiced, a community is born to dance, to sweat, to change, to support, and to provide a safe space for each of us to shatter the ego’s hold and awaken the juicy, unpredictable, fascinating, edge-walking, rock star part of ourselves that yearns to be free. Creativity. Connection. Community.
This is an opportunity to delve deeper into your personal dance meditation, following the body’s intelligence, while guided by the music through the rhythms of Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness. The 5Rhythms® – are states of Being. They are a map to everywhere we want to go, on all planes of consciousness – inner and outer, forward and back, physical, emotional, and intellectual.
All are welcome to this practice! There are no choreographed steps to learn.
Want to learn more, visit 5Rhythms.com.