Passion as Presence | Ecstatic Dance Culture × RAW Storytelling, February 2026
- Feb 17
- 4 min read
Artist reflection on an ecstatic dance collaboration and storytelling performance at RAW Storytelling, London.
On 13 February 2026, two strands of my practice came together in the same space — immersive visual art and embodied storytelling.
Before the storytelling began at RAW Storytelling, I collaborated with Ecstatic Dance Culture (EDC) to create a 30-minute immersive movement experience — guided music, projected visuals, a non-speaking, held space.
Then, later that evening, I stood alone with a microphone and told the story of "How I became a cosmic witch".
The Dance Before the Words
The evening opened not with language, but with bodies.
DJ Kata facilitated a compressed ecstatic dance arc — guided movement into free-flow, then grounding. I shaped the room visually: warm light, immersive colour, rhythmic repetition.
The intention was not spectacle.
It was containment.
A womb-like space.
A heart-led field.
A place where movement didn’t have to impress anyone.
We framed it simply:
Passion as sensation. Passion as presence. Passion as aliveness.
And then the stories began.
The Visual Language
For this event, I built a visual environment around a simple motif: the strawberry.
It felt like a fitting symbol for the theme of passion — ripe, sensual, a little playful — and it also happened to be the eve of Valentine’s Day.
Across the set, the strawberry became a shifting visual language. Sometimes holographic, sometimes dissolving into kaleidoscopic vortices, at other moments lush and almost overripe.
At moments, the imagery leaned into sweetness and sensuality. At others, it tipped toward rave culture — a cyberdelic aesthetic of pulsing colour and repetition.
The Set & Visual Field
The 30-minute ecstatic dance experience was shaped as a contained arc:
Guided arrival → embodied build → free flow → grounding.
The music moved through a multi-genre landscape held by DJ Kata, while I built a live visual environment in response — layering warmth, rhythm and repetition into the room.
This wasn’t a performance to watch.
It was a field to enter.
You can experience the full recording of the set and visuals below:
If you’re listening at home, I recommend:
• Low lights
• No multitasking
• Let your body move if it wants to
This work lives most fully when it’s embodied.
The Power of Attention
When it was my turn to speak, the room shifted.
The music was gone.
The lights felt sharper.
The air felt still.
Everyone sat in complete silence.
Full attention.
I once heard someone say that attention is the most generous thing we can give one another.
Standing there, feeling that collective stillness — not distracted, not fractured — I understood the weight of that generosity.
It was powerful.
Not ego-powerful. Not performative.
Just human.
To be witnessed in that way — without interruption — is rare. It slows something down. It steadies you.
It reminded me that art isn’t only about expression.
It’s about being received.
“I used to think passion meant burning for something. Now I’m learning it means staying present long enough to feel something real.”
What Passion Meant to the Room
Two very different acts unfolded that evening.
Movement without language.
Then language without movement.
Both rooted in the same question:
What is passion, really?
There was a submissions box at the event. Audience members were invited to write what passion meant to them.
Afterwards, we read through them.
One word appeared again and again:
Dance.
Not career. Not ambition. Not achievement.
Dance.
That struck me.
Because what people were really naming wasn’t choreography or nightlife.
They were naming freedom.
Permission.
Embodied truth.
The ability to move without being evaluated.
The same thing I’ve been circling in my own life.
Becoming a Cosmic Witch
My talk began on my 40th birthday.
With a phone call.
With the sudden death of a friend.
With a party I attended while grieving and pretending I wasn’t.
It was the story of how I learned that pushing feelings down eventually pushes back.
How therapy opened boxes I had sealed for decades.
How grief turned into rage.
Rage into eros.
Eros into art.
“The opposite of depression is not joy — it’s expression.”
For a year, I went dark in my work.
Stonehenge.
Red tent retreats.
Tarot.
Full moon rituals.
Films about fear and shame and shadow.
I wasn’t trying to be mystical.
I was trying not to bypass my pain anymore.
Eventually, that path led me into women’s ecstatic dance spaces shaped by the lunar cycle — spaces where every feeling was welcome.
Grief.
Anger.
Joy.
Ecstasy.
And slowly, I understood something.
"Sorrow is a spoon that digs a space not only for joy, but for all the feelings."
I became what I now call a cosmic witch.
Not because I wanted an identity.
But because I stopped performing resilience and started listening to my own depth.
“The grief cracked me open. And it set me free.”
Integration
What stayed with me most from the evening wasn’t applause.
It was the silence.
The attention.
And the fact that so many people defined passion as dance.
Passion is no longer something I try to burn for or chase.
It’s something I stay with.
Something I allow.
Something I embody.
This collaboration felt like a threshold moment in my practice — bringing immersive visual art, embodied ritual, and spoken narrative into the same container.
Movement and language.
Darkness and light.
Grief and aliveness.
All welcome in the same field.
This event forms part of my ongoing exploration of immersive visual environments and embodied storytelling.
Thank you to Ecstatic Dance Culture, What Does Not, and everyone who offered their attention so generously.
If you’re interested in collaborating on immersive visual environments, embodied art spaces, or live storytelling, you can get in touch here.
About the Project
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