This one is all about community and taking the time and patience to allow your Ecstatic Dance family to grow...sometimes over years. It takes a special sort of dedication to stick with a community as it grows from humble beginnings and Jazzy Be has got to be one of the most community centred and inspiring people I've met. From humble beginnings with a handful of friends dragging a generator and sound system into the Welsh woodlands and valleys for a sober dance, to the awesome ED community of South Wales that has become well established 5 years later - this podcast is a real inspiration for us all.

Jazzy Be is the founder and one of the resident DJ's behind Ecstatic Dance Wales, creating wild, joyful and compassionate spaces for people to reconnect with their bodies, each other, and the land.

Having grown up raving and travelling to festivals, Jazzy fell deeply in love with the transformative power of music, the way a beat can shift something in us, bring people together, and create a sense of freedom and belonging. Through her own experiences of grief and healing, she came to understand even more deeply how powerful it can be to have a space where you don’t have to explain, fix or find the right words, you can simply be, feel, move and let the body speak.

This became a big part of Jazzy’s inspiration for bringing Ecstatic Dance to her hometown of Swansea and across South Wales. She wanted to create more compassionate, sober spaces where people could come together, feel whatever they needed to feel, and experience connection through something deeper than words: music, movement and the body.

Having witnessed the impact of alcohol and drug use within her local community, Jazzy felt passionate about offering an alternative kind of dance floor—one where people could experience freedom, euphoria, release and connection without needing substances to get there.

For the past five years, Jazzy has been taking Ecstatic Dance Wales into beaches, forests, cliffs and wild landscapes across Cymru. Deeply rooted in the Welsh spirit of hiraeth, that longing for home, belonging and connection, her gatherings celebrate the relationship between people, place, music and embodied expression.

As a DJ and facilitator, Jazzy creates musical journeys that move between the sensual, earthy, playful and deeply emotive. Her sets might take you from a spicy, cheeky banger that gets everyone grinning and booty shaking, into a soulful, emotional dive that opens the door to something much more sacred.

"Bridging the sacred and the silly" is her favourite flavour in ecstatic dance.

At the heart of Jazzy’s work is a belief that we don’t always need words to process, connect or heal. Sometimes we need music. Sometimes we need movement. Sometimes we simply need a safe space to be exactly as we are, and let the body lead the way.

Links:

Ticket Links: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/ecstatic-dance-wales-73090798033?aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecstaticdancewales_/

It was my total honour and pleasure to chew the cud and go deeeeeeeeeppp with Pixi Pete, a total legend of the UK ecstatic dance scene. We started talking in daylight and were so carried away that we found ourselves talking in the dark at one point, thats how good the conversation was. In this episode we go deep into dance as therapy - how the Ecstatic Dance space can be a therapeutic one and what that means when it comes to establishing intention and holding it safely and with integrity.

Pixi Pete is a DJ, musician and somatic and embodiment facilitator with over a decade immersed in embodiment, movement, meditation and performance. His work lives at the meeting point of music and movement — creating spaces where people can move from thinking to presence, from their heads, into their bodies and explore connection, expression and what it means to be fully present.

At the heart of Pete's work is a love of music that refuses to sit neatly in one box. His multi-genre, open-format style moves fluidly between deep, soulful grooves, playful rhythms, unexpected turns and dynamic peaks. Weaving electronic sound with live percussion to create immersive dancefloors.

Alongside his music, his training as an Embodied Resilience Practitioner, Authentic Relating Lv1 and the Dancing Heart Path informs the way he reads a room and responds to the people in it — creating experiences that feel both alive and grounded.

Whether behind the decks, playing live percussion or facilitating, Pete brings his heart, playfulness and a strong care for the energy of a group. His aim is simple: create spaces where people feel welcome, connected and free to move, express and be themselves.

Insta @djpixipete

www.linktr.ee/pixipete

Continuing my fascinating chats with people at all stages of their ecstatic dance adventure this time I talk to the effervescent and endlessly enthusiastic Yasmin - the founder of Ecstatica UK and one of the many people that helps to keep the Dance the Medicine world turning.

We chat about so many topics, finding the perfect space for an ecstatic dance; compiling sets and when it all goes wrong, how enough enthusiasm will see you transporting a sound system to every dance using just taxis and some willing friends, what to have ready and so much more.

She is a passionate Ecstatic Dance facilitator and DJ whose journey has taken her across the globe. From living in intentional, land-connected communities in Colombia to training with world-class mentors like Dance the Medicine, she has gathered a rich tapestry of practices in movement, meditation, and energy. Her introduction to ecstatic dance was so powerful it left her high on joy - and it’s been a deeply healing and liberating force in her life ever since. Through Ecstatica, Yasmin creates spaces where others can fully let go, explore, and come home to themselves - reclaiming their power, potential and innate freedom through dance.

Website: https://www.ecstatica.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecstatica.uk/

Mixcloud: www.mixcloud.com/Ecstatica_Yasmin/