The Dances of Universal Peace are spiritual practices that uses singing and dancing the sacred phrases of the world’s religions. The primary focus is to assist individuals in raising their consciousness and to promote peace. The combination of chants from many world religions with dancing, whirling and movements with singing. A wide range of languages are employed to demonstrate how joy lives at the heart of every religion. Peace can be promoted through experiencing the universal feeling of joy through these diverse dance steps, chants and languages. Dancing is an opportunity to develop participants’ spiritual awareness and to explore the deeper mystical meanings of the dance.

History of the dances were formulated in the late 1960’s by Samuel L. Lewis and were done in California. The original dances were influenced by his spiritual relationship with Ruth St Denis a modern dance pioneer and Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi master. He drew on the teachings of various religious and spiritual traditions. The therapeutic uses of the Dances as well as the walking meditations developed have been explored in various settings.The Dances have developed into a global movement.  Neil Douglas-Klotz’s creation of the dances  using the Aramaic words of Jesus have entered many alternative and mainstream religious circles.

Currently I am being mentored as a dance leader as well as learning Dances of Mary created by Linda McMakin.