Spiral Dance
Encyclopedia
- For the book by Starhawk, see The Spiral DanceThe Spiral DanceThe Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess is a best-selling book about Neopagan belief and practice written by Starhawk. It was first published in 1979, with a second edition in 1989 and a third edition in 1999...
. For the band, see Spiral Dance (band)Spiral Dance (band)Spiral Dance is an Adelaide-based folk rock band whose musical focus is on the concepts of magic, myth and legend.The band was formed in 1992 as a project to explore some of the more mystical elements in life and has drawn its energy from the songwriting and vocal skills of Adrienne Piggott...
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Spiral dance, also called the Grapevine dance and the Weaver’s dance, is a Neopagan group dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
emphasizing community and rebirth, although it is also used as an effective way to raise power in a ritual. Although it originated in the Reclaiming
Reclaiming (neopaganism)
Reclaiming is an international community of women and men working to combine earth-based spirituality and political activism. Its predecessor organization, the Reclaiming Collective, was founded in 1979 by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and...
tradition, it has become a more mainstream Neopagan ritual which is especially popular at festivals due to its accommodation of large numbers of people.
History
The spiral dance is a central ritual dance to Reclaiming Witches. The first spiral dance was performed in Berkeley, CA, and was performed in a ritual intended to meld art, music, ritual and politics as well as to celebrate the publication of The Spiral DanceThe Spiral Dance
The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess is a best-selling book about Neopagan belief and practice written by Starhawk. It was first published in 1979, with a second edition in 1989 and a third edition in 1999...
by Starhawk
Starhawk
Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...
. It turned into a yearly ritual, although a large portion of the politics were removed for later versions of the ritual and it currently exists as a Samhain
Samhain
Samhain is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer...
celebration to honor the dead and celebrate rebirth.
Performance
The spiral dance usually involves a drumming group and a chant or song in addition to the dancers. All members present hold hands and follow a leader in a counter-clockwise motion using a grapevine step. As the leader comes near closing the circle, he or she whips around and begins moving clockwise while facing the rest of the dancers. By continuing this formation, every dancer in the line will eventually be face to face with every other dancer.In some close-knit circles, where people are comfortable with the idea, a kiss is given to each person at the moment they pass each other in the dance. In most cases, this kissing is frowned upon or even banned entirely in public circles due to it being intrusive and disruptive to the rhythm of the dance.
In popular culture
The 1990s adventure gameAdventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood depicts Maid Marian as a forest priestess whose duties include, among other things, a one-person spiral dance.