Kat Forrester is pictured here on the right, with her good friend Anna at a recent Long Dance. She was a Movement Medicine Professional and is now retired, who was at the very first Summer Long Dance. This was held as part of the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship Number One (AP1) July 2009 at the Earth Spirit Centre in Somerset. Here, she reflects on her long Long Dance adventure.
"We were 48 Apprentices plus Susannah, Ya’Acov and staff, crowded into a yurt. We were utterly baffled - what?!?! Dance continuously for 48 hours (as it was then)?! With only 2 hours rest at night (as it was then)?! With occasional small amounts of food during the ceremony (as it still is now)?! We were the pioneers of AP1, offering ourselves as a paint box for a work of art in progress. And in those days we weren’t yet very familiar with the Movement Medicine Mandala as the map that would guide us through. We came down off the sofa of familiar comforts & routines and up for surprises.
Setting up our dance space in a yurt, we used ladders to hang huge paintings. Then we took them all down again because the ceremony leader saw they occupied too much space, obscuring the daylight coming through the round window in the roof. I saw this as the right decision; still it took a lot of nerve by the leader to turn down the generosity of the artist, whose work had been brought with such effort and care all the way from Sheffield.
I was in my early sixties and the team leader was doubtful that I should be shinning up ladders, though I was sure-footed and it was perfectly normal for me. I was at once startled to be thought so old, delighted to show off that I still could do that, and warmed by this first sign of care for a community elder. None of these details matter now, but I love them just the same. They remind me of that aspect of the Long Dance where you find yourself on unusual tasks, with unchosen configurations of companions. It puts you on the spot. What are you going to do now, Kat? To me this is Dynamic Peace Work.
A yurt being circular, much of our dancing was done facing in towards the centre, so while witnessing from the outer edge we came to recognise the distinctive bum-swing of each one of our companions. In silences between the music sets, breeze ruffled the canvas of the yurt, and the struts of the roof creaked their slow song.
I was happy as never! Enchanted!
That was the first of 13 Summer Long Dances held so far. It has grown longer (72 hours, with considerably longer sleeping times each night), larger in a rectangular marquee with plenty of room for more dancers, and lavish catering for the days before and after. I have only missed two of them; I have eleven rainbow ribbons.
I have wanted to write about this for some time, but never could find out how. The Long Dance defies linear and binary thinking. I wrote some pieces which ended up sounding like an estate agent’s sales pitch or holiday brochure – not to be trusted. And not really me.
Then the gateway opened wide with Keef’s magnificent month of teaching on the Movement Medicine Study Hub this February 2025 – Poetry of the Soul. With his inspiration and support and the enthusiastic contributions of the Hubsters on the Hub's reflections thread, I turned my hand to “dancing poetry” as a way of describing the indescribable in all its colours. What a liberation of our creativity! Here is my offering. ❤ Kat.xx
Love poem to the Long Dance
Pilgrims dance in foreign field
No official sanctuary here
No named God, no fixed belief
We’re held in the hand of a hollow in the land
Just the flap of a tent between us and the sky
Feels holy enough to me.
These are my people
Dancers all, seekers every one
Called home to our hearts
By the beat of a drum.
The fire is lit, we have begun.
Why did I come here? How will I know?
So many things we thought turned out not true
All the balls are in the air, so dance
Weaving threads of kindness into the global grid
Small things make big difference, of this I am sure.
We rock and we roll in rhythms and shapes
Three days and three nights
On and on, on and on
Until we think we can no more, but we do
Wriggle into our skins, shake up our bones
Carried on the currents of a hundred moving bodies
We rise and fall and rise again
Lifted up on a carpet of melody and song
With a groan or a giggle or a sigh.
It’s more like a theatre to me than a church
I have seen lionesses in here,
A dragon came by from Germany,
I have seen someone whirling as her vision came through,
I have seen a woman knitting all hours of daylight
A sideways glance brings me insight to a question
That I didn’t even know I was asking
This is the real stuff here
We are living the dream.
There is a pond among the trees
I have seen a kingfisher there
I mean to dive into that cold spring water again
To shriek and swim for my life.
Then it’s the end
And we all go home
In glory and tatters
With a shine."
