Wisdom Dances at Eye of the Heart Center

Wisdom Dances provides a space where people cultivate hope and resilience in the midst of change through the power of traditional dance. Our programs include joyful dancing, live music, ritual costumes for special occasions, and a seasonal cycle of programs exploring myth. 

We are dancing to reconnect with our European Indigenous roots. The dances embody an ancient world view of sustainability, community, and reverence for the earth. Through dance we are relearning our place in history and on the earth. We learn how to move through life in a way that nurtures ourselves and the future. 

We are a contemporary Wisdom school centered around women’s ritual dances. Our approach is founded on dancer and scholar Laura Shannon’s research revealing how the patterns and movements of traditional ritual dances have encoded information in non-verbal, symbolic ways, passing on wisdom through the joyful experience of collective movement. For this reason she sees these dances as a kind of women's mystery school with ancient and living roots.

Thanks to donors like you we are able to bring the healing power of our dances out into the community for four free events each year.

• The January we gather people by the frozen banks of the Mississippi River to sing to the water.
• In April the Wisdom Dancers put on their ceremonial dress and rove around the Twin Cities bringing blessing dances to the water, to the bees, to people who are sick, and to places in need of an infusion of vitality.
• In mid-summer we again gather by the river and dance for the healing of water and all of life.
• We create an invitation into deep Winter Rest, through a free weekly supported practice of darkness.

Helping people find their place in the circle of community and in the circle of the seasons prepares us for knowing how to respond with meaning and purpose to the challenges of our times. Wisdom Dances is helping people find what reciprocity and deep belonging feels like in their bones; that inner knowing can guide us towards creating a future in which all life flourishes.

No other group that we know of in North America is creating a dance community in this way. We depend on community support to be able to serve the community in this way. Thank you for your generosity.

Springboard for the Arts is the fiscal sponsor for Wisdom Dances. All donations made to Wisdom Dances through Springboard for the Arts are tax-deductible. Make checks payable to Springboard for the Arts with Wisdom Dances in the memo line and send them to Wisdom Dances for processing at 4500 Bloomington Ave S #102, Minneapolis, MN 55407.