Alixir Dance

People who have never gone to ecstatic dance ALIXIR DANCE often tell me they’d like to try it, but they’re nervous to dance in front of others. I tell them to take a leap of faith and go.

We’ve changed the name Ecstatic Dance International to ALIXIR DANCE. We’ve been doing a lot of reflecting and planning during the pandemic, and are stoked to be relaunching.

Going to ALIXIR ecstatic dance requires courage. Every time. We show up, yet we have no clue who will be there, what the music will be like, or what will emerge. We might dance solo, or with another.

Caitlin Clarke is a somatic coach for highly sensitive, high-achieving women who are struggling with stress and overwhelm and want to create soul-satisfying lives. She's coached individuals and groups for over 8 years, and her trauma-informed approach includes mindfulness, applied neuroscience, and Buddhist principles.

Shay Marie has studied Spacial Dynamics®, a discipline that explores the relationship between the body and its environment. By understanding how to move space around the body, she helps individuals and groups improve their movement abilities, enhance connection and flow, and cultivate greater awareness.

Her expertise lies in movement, energy healing, hypnotherapy, intuition, and relationship skills. Along with certification in Somatic therapy, Hypnotherapy, and Energy Medicine, Shay Marie has studied Spacial Dynamics®, a discipline that explores the relationship between the body and its environment. By understanding how to move space around the body, she helps individuals and groups improve their movement abilities, enhance connection and flow, and cultivate greater awareness.

Teaching partner dance internationally as a practice for mindful, authentic living by facilitating his signature modality Cocréa, is his joyful service. Using movement, he guides people towards right-relationship through listening and responding to, as well as inviting, allowing and embracing change.

Teaching partner dance internationally as a practice for mindful, authentic living by facilitating his signature modality Cocréa, is his joyful service. Using movement, he guides people towards right-relationship through listening and responding to, as well as inviting, allowing and embracing change. He is a celebrated TEDx speaker, featured author in “ReInhabiting the Village” and proponent of pioneering a new renaissance through connection and consensual touch.

Dr. Rachel Jordana Horodezky, Psy.D is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Certified 5Rhythms Teacher. In her teaching, she incorporates music and intentional guidance to evoke trance, emotional process, and deep healing. She lives in Santa Cruz, California where she has a full-time private practice and two rambunctious little boys.

She is also a Certified 5Rhythms® Teacher. Majica Alba is a creative visionary, deeply immersed in the worlds of art, music, and dance, which she uses as therapeutic vehicles. Majica has two decades of experience as a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist focused on emotional, attachment, and creative arts therapies.

She is the Creator of Visionary Leadership Embodied Wisdom Path. Supporting individuals, couples, and communities to manifest their vision into the world. She brings through the many modalities of offerings throughout her 25 years of facilitating groups and sitting with clients. A Dancing Alchemist Facilitator trained in the Dunham Dance Technique, Afro-Latin, Afro-Haitian, Brazilian, Diaspora, as well as Modern & Contact Dance.

A Dancing Alchemist Facilitator trained in the Dunham Dance Technique, Afro-Latin, Afro-Haitian, Brazilian, Diaspora, as well as Modern & Contact Dance. She has mentored & assisted with Gabriel Roth 5 Rhythms, Miguel Ruiz 4 Agreements, S. Nicole Hill -Sound Movement Integration/ Institute of Indigenous Arts as well as 25 years of study and initiations on the path of awakening.

Tess also runs a dance based rites of passage program for contemporary city dwellers which explores how creativity, community and connection can make our lives more meaningful. She relishes and cherishes space, sky, sea and stillness.

She regularly leads these outdoors dance events where participants can be deeply nurtured by nature. Tess also runs a dance based rites of passage program for contemporary city dwellers which explores how creativity, community and connection can make our lives more meaningful.

I trained in 5Rhythms® with Gabrielle Roth in 2005 and with the support and partnership of Andrea over the years I have come to feel at home in the group field. I am also a man of many other interests. I am a playful technocrat. I own my own consulting business. I am a father, an artist, and have built my own “super green” house off the grid in the Big Sur mountains.

Over the past two decades, Donna has been instrumental in producing and teaching numerous conscious dance events and programs as the founder of Alixir Dance. As a leader, she harnesses the power of movement, mindfulness, and music to foster transformation, connection, and a sense of belonging for her clients.

The Alixir Dance method is enriched by her studies with esteemed teachers including Andrea Juhan of Open Floor International, Daria Halpbern of Tamalpa Institute, and Jenny Sauer Klein of AcroYoga. Donna is a dance facilitator and dedicated recovery counselor who is deeply committed to helping people thrive. Her approach is rooted in patient, steady support, and her embodiment skills enable her to deeply listen to her clients, facilitating exploration of their deepest motivations toward creating lives of purpose and fulfillment.

The experience is a 2 hour ecstatic dance. We finish with a meditation. Donna Vorst, founder of ALIXIR DANCE, has created an experience to help you get out of your head and into your body. Utilizing a focused ecstatic dance session with light facilitation creates the ideal conditions for transformative experiences.

Donna employs experiential and embodied therapeutic techniques including Healing Through Creativity, Inner Child Inner Voice, EcoTherapy, and Sundo Practice, in which she holds a red belt. Her approach is rooted in patient, steady support, and her embodiment skills enable her to deeply listen to her clients, facilitating exploration of their deepest motivations toward creating lives of purpose and fulfillment. Her method, Alixir Dance, is enriched by her studies with esteemed teachers.

Alixir Dance is a spiritual experience that encapsulates mind, body and soul. Dancers run the gamut from slow and soft to loud and wild. It’s about how it feels, not what it looks like. You don’t have to know how to dance, or even have rhythm, to have fun. We start the two-hour experience with slow warm-up music to help you get in the mood for the ecstatic dance journey. We finish with a cool down and live meditation.

When bodies, minds and spirits gather in a fun, community-minded dance experience. Challenge your body and recharge your spirit with freeform ecstatic dance.

The Monday night Mountain View ecstatic dance was winding down. I sat at the altar and looked at the tarot cards that had been chosen by other dancers and lay face up on the black cloth.

A lightly guided, heart-centered dance space where we move to heal, connect, and expand. We dance to remember who we are, to feel our belonging, and to step into what’s next. Want to feel more alive? Craving deeper connection—with yourself and others? Looking for a community that’s real, grounded, and transformative? This is it. Every week, we gather to create a field of presence, play, and possibility. No experience necessary. Come as you are.

I remember the first time I went to the Wednesday night ecstatic dance on the Big Island of Hawaii as if it were yesterday, though it happened 15 years ago. Do you remember your first time?

Early in the morning, I sit in a corner of the dark dance floor next to a pile of pillows. I’m overcome with tears of recognition. This is home—dance, transformation, an altar, and a smooth, worn wood.

In a world that often pulls us apart, what does it mean to move in solidarity? To feel another’s rhythm and root into shared ground? This workshop invites us to enter the field of solidarity, not as a concept, but as a pulse, a breath, a shared weight. Solidarity in motion is not about uniformity or agreement. Instead, it calls for presence. For staying rooted when another shakes, to witness difference without retreat. It is the embodied act of saying: I see you. I’m with you. In movement, we practice the art of holding and being held. We explore how to lean without collapsing, to stand without hardening, to walk beside another without needing to lead or follow. Whether you're seeking community, clarity, or a place to root your voice and values—this is a space to deepen your felt sense of what it means to belong with.