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DJai Ma - Embodiment | Dance | Ritual

@djaima_rissa

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Creating space for deep feeling, movement and expression through music and dance
🤍 Dance Fridays @queenstown_ecstaticdance
⬇️ Sets, retreats & events

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Dance has become one of the ways
I understand myself

And what an honour it is to share
this work from that space 🤍

@somaticdanceinternational

#somaticdance #somaticmovement #movementmedicine #homecomingretreat #aoteroa by @djaima_rissa

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2 months ago

What do you mean I get to feel this alive all the time… 🥹

#feelitall #sensitivityissuperpower
#embodiedliving #ecstaticdance
#aliveness by @djaima_rissa

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4 months ago

She Who Remembers

The forest breathes her into being
Moss and wind in her hair
Roots humming beneath bare feet
A pulse older than words

She moves not to perform
But to remember

To let the earth move through her hips
To let her body mirror the rivers below

A woman listening to the whispers within
Letting desire speak through her skin

She dances with her shadows
Bare, exposed, unhidden

She no longer shrinks for comfort
She expands for life

This is a homecoming to the body
To the woman who remembers herself

Who lets herself be witnessed
In fullness, softness, fire

This is her full-bodied fuck YES to being seen

📸 @timshoultz.photography by @djaima_rissa

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6 months ago

SOIL to SKY ✨our bodies hold a whole world within them.
The stories we carry, the ways we protect ourselves, the longing for connection. And the capacity to feel something shift.

This Sunday the 18th, we’re exploring the body as a meeting place between earth and sky. Rooted below, open above, with the heart at the centre of what moves through us and ripples outward.

A dance with space for everything we’re arriving with. For tenderness, curiosity, connection and a little more wonder 🤍

Sunday 18 October · 11am–1pm
Te Atamira · Frankton · Queenstown

Soundscape: DJai Ma
Facilitation: Sarsha Hope

Tickets via the link in bio 🤍

Somatic Sundays · Dance Tribe Queenstown by @djaima_rissa

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2 days ago

We’re not moving away from ecstatic dance nor are we trying to put movement into another box. We’re simply bringing more intention to the somatic exploration that’s always been woven into our dance journeys.

For those who danced with us back in the church days, you’ll recognise the essence. Epic musical journeys, guided exploration, freedom of expression and all the beautiful layers that unfold on the dance floor.

Ecstatic dance can be deeply somatic, and somatic dance can be wildly ecstatic. They don’t need to be separate. 🤍

We’re excited to bring this next chapter to life with you!

Somatic Sundays | Dance Tribe Queenstown
Every second Sunday at Te Atamira, Frankton.

Sunday 18th October
Soundcape: DJai Ma
Facilitator: Sarsha Hope

See you on the dance floor! 🌀 by @djaima_rissa

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3 days ago

One year of adventures with you 💗

Feels like longer. Being in a long distance relationship is quite the trip. Moments of deep presence and learning to communicate on a whole new level mixed in with high intensity experiences, festival performances, trainings and all that goes with being facilitators and DJs.

It has been a dream to have a partner who can meet me in my creative pursuits but equally know how to chill. Actually creating space for slowness has been the most challenging part, this life is so about the hustle.

Shout out to my woman who hates wearing shoes, can meet me in the earthly realms of embodiment and ritual and finds the space cadet in me amusing 🤣🫣

@djaima_rissa 😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘 by @djaima_rissa

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4 days ago

We didn’t just learn the lyrics. We absorbed ideas about women, desire, whose voice matters and who gets to speak for whom.

Patriarchy reaches us through the everyday. Repetition makes things familiar, but familiar deserves questioning too.

What did we learn before we had the words to question it?

Which beliefs feel like our own because we’ve never known a world without them?

What have we learnt to dismiss in women and excuse in others?

Whose comfort have we been taught to protect? And whose discomfort have we learnt to overlook?

If we don’t look at what we’ve inherited, how the fuck do we decide what ends with us? by @djaima_rissa

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7 days ago

Come dance with us AND be part of the crew 💛

We’re looking for volunteers to help with setup, welcoming dancers and packing down, in exchange for a free dance ticket. Pre- and post-dance fun with the crew included ✨

No need to commit every time 👯‍♀️ we’ll work around your availability.

Somatic Dance returns every second Sunday from 18 October 🌿 Send me a message if you’re keen! X by @djaima_rissa

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14 days ago

What are you waiting for? 💋 by @djaima_rissa

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15 days ago

I feel angry. I feel sick to my stomach. I keep thinking about the culture that exists around sexual violence, not only the act itself, but everything we’ve normalised around it.

The fucking jokes.

The slut-shaming, as if somehow it was HER fault.

The shame that can leave you carrying something that was never yours to carry.

The justifications that make YOU question your own experience until you start wondering if somehow you were the one who did something wrong.

The guilt of not knowing how to say no.
Or trying to say it and being ignored.
The self-doubt that follows.

I want us to live in a culture where we actually care about knowing the difference between a yes, a no, a maybe and everything in between.

Where we understand that consent can change.

Where we check in. Where we pay attention. Where hesitation matters.

Where being intoxicated or incapacitated is never treated as an opportunity.

Where someone doesn’t have to fight you off or scream NO before you understand that something isn’t right.

Where we hold our friends accountable instead of protecting them.

This conversation is fucking huge.
But we cannot stay quiet about this anymore.

Some things need to change.

and yes , WE KNOW, it’s not all men.
But women don’t know which men.

This is bigger than the people committing the violence.

It’s about the culture we’re all part of.. men AND women.

What we laugh at.
What we excuse.
What we normalise.
And what we stay silent about. by @djaima_rissa

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16 days ago

Jokes aside, regulation doesn’t always mean calming down.

Sometimes we actually need to move through the chaos before we can find our way back to calm.

’Cause regulation ain’t about forcing ourselves into stillness or trying to make an uncomfortable feeling “disappear.” Sometimes there’s energy in the body that just needs somewhere to go.

To shake. To stomp. To dance.
To cry. To make sound.

You know… all the shit toddlers instinctively do when they have BIG feelings. 😂

They shake it out. Scream. Cry. Run around like tiny possessed humans. Their emotions aren’t exactly quiet, tidy little experiences.

Not that we need to start throwing ourselves on the supermarket floor when life gets hard 😂 but expression and movement can be part of how we move through activation. by @djaima_rissa

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21 days ago

Love these memories from interlude last month! What a lush time. And how good were all the artists?! Keep an eye out for their sets being released soon. 🔥

Big love and thanks to @fancast__productions for this footage 🫶🏼👏

Annnnnnnd…..

We have news! We have just locked in our next gig at @rhymexreasonbrewery for November 14th. Pop the date in your calendar for Emergence II 🌸

For those who didn’t make it to the first Emergence last year, the idea behind it is to come together to emerge from the winter slumber into spring, and into the truest versions of ourselves. With an added layer of giving one emerging artist a platform to step out into the world of sharing their art.

Last year our emerging artist was @christeady and since then his DJ career has absolutely sky rocketed!!! He’s played at @dancingplantparties, @burningman, @kiwiburn, Ignition just to name a few, and we couldn’t be more proud of him. 😍

Tickets will be released real soon 👀 Stay tuned to see who our emerging artist will be this year, plus full line-up and more info to come. We can’t wait!!! 🫶🏼 taken in Wanaka, New Zealand by @djaima_rissa

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23 days ago