Story and Photos by Hilary Nichols
Dancing with the Elements: The Ecstatic Journey of Andrew Werderitsch and Our Play Ground.
If music is playing, Andrew Werderitsch will be moving to it. As the creative force behind Elemental Ecstatic Dance in Ann Arbor, Werderitsch is in his element on a dance floor. He bounces and glides with an energy that is both grounding and transcendent. His commitment to his ecstatic dance is admirable. Werderitsch spends days hand-crafting his playlists before each Sunday, and often plays hand drums and his didgeridoo to add rhythms and vibrations to the room. It is this intimacy with the sounds that really define how Werderitsch honors this practice.
“I began dancing in Ann Arbor at the World of Wheels skating rink in 6th grade.” He laughed. “It was a thing. Like studio 54 for teens. It kept me out of trouble, it changed my life. Music opened me up to so much,” he shared. Then Nectarine Ballroom, now called the Necto in downtown Ann Arbor, doubled his devotion. “It was my first dance club. I was doing splits on that dance floor.”
Dance clubs have their place, but Ecstatic Dance has reimagined the impact of dance and expanded it into a healing modality that allows participants to share in a more meaningful movement practice. “It is a full spectrum experience, flowing through joy, laughter, tears, catharsis, togetherness, and personal expression,” Werderitsch said. “We’ve been dancing, moving, and playing as a species for countless generations. The settings of the grounds have changed over the years, but our need to gather together in ritual is still strong.”
“Ecstatic Dance is not a new phenomenon,” Andrew Werderitsch said. “Its roots can be traced back to ancient times, to the primordial rhythms of Gondwanaland circa 130,000 years ago. But for the sake of modern history, let’s start in the year 2000 on the Big Island of Hawaii.” Contemporary Ecstatic Dance was said to originate at a Yoga Studio and eventually spread to dance floors across California and then the world over.
As yoga and other dance classes have grown in popularity, this sort of dance practice still might be unfamiliar to many. But music and movement is in all of us. “At some point in my life,” Werderitsch recounted, “when I was watching drummers and hearing the rhythm, my body just had to move with it. The kinetic link was so palpable and when the music drops into me, my body becomes the physical manifestation of the sound, all the elements of the music animate and express through me.”
It was in Australia that Wederitsch first broke through his final hesitation. He lived near Byron Bay area for years and it was there he recalled that, “I was the first one, I just went out to the empty dance floor and started boogeying down. I broke the ice. Then the floor filled. From that point on, there was no qualms to dance.” His devotion doubled and led him to dances of all sorts.
Werderitsch shared on his Facebook page, “I had already spent over a decade immersed in the world of Gabriel Roth’s 5 Rhythms—a dance practice developed in the mid-70s that involves moving through five distinct rhythms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness.” From this modality Werderitsch found Ecstatic Dance to be a natural progression to center dance as a form of self-expression and healing in his life. “Today I find myself filled with gratitude for the vibrant dance communities that have blossomed in places like Detroit and Brighton.” Though at the time there was no weekly Sunday morning dance in Ann Arbor.
As a dancer myself, I cherish the creativity and freedom to interpret the music as it lifts and inspires my movement. Even though I had to overcome my inhibition, I found Ecstatic Dance to be consistently uplifting. The two hours of movement opened my spine and my heart. When I moved to Ann Arbor in 2010, I discovered an early incarnation of Dance Church in a light-filled loft on Liberty Street and followed its growth, moving locations through four studios, before it disbanded around 2020. In its place other Ecstatic Dance offerings have gathered locally on Friday nights, or one Sunday afternoon each month. Listings to find these and other Ecstatic Dance events are on the ‘Ecstatic Dance A2’ page on Facebook. In 2022 Werderitsch moved from Nevada City, California back to Michigan and now lives in Chelsea with his two sons, Cypress and Cosmo, and wife, Anna. Drumming and dance gatherings helped them discover their footing here. From our first meetings it was clear he and I shared a passion and a need for the practice of Ecstatic Dance.
On his ‘Our Play Ground’ Facebook group, Werderitsch had been putting out feelers for nearly a year, hoping someone would step-up and fulfill that need. His criteria for a great gathering were well defined. He wanted a soft wood floor to dance on and the best music to move to. When no one else would, he realized he might have to be the one to step up. He reached out to dancers to build a team, and I came forward to be the encouragement and sounding board he needed to enact this vision.
On February 11, 2024, his first Elemental Ecstatic Dance event opened its doors. In April they moved to A2 Yoga Studio for a free-form movement gathering held weekly on Sunday mornings. Drawing inspiration from Gabriel Roth’s 5 Rhythms, Werderitsch curates the music to guide the dancers through a wave of elemental energies: from the gentle flow of water to the grounding pulse of earth, the wild heat of fire, the breezy nature of air, and finally, the stillness of the void.
Dancers and movers bounce around each other like molecules, never touching but dividing the dance floor smoothly. Others sit, meditate, stretch, and rest on the mats. The music can be familiar, but often more ethereal and melodic tracks evoke all the emotions expressed through dance. Werderitsch mused, “I never disconnected to the dance throughout life. It shifted from disco to funk and then new wave to electronic to world music, which led me to this devotion for a truly eclectic collection of sounds that move me.”
This weekly daytime event is crafted with deep intent, reflecting the community’s need for such a practice and its appreciation for it. “I feel my offering of this is unique,” Werderitsch said, “as a lover of so many different genres of music, and as a dancer, I know dance music. And I am open to learning more for sure. I hope to be that elderly gentleman that can still boogey down when the time calls, dancing until the end.”
Dancers come to the practice for so many reasons. “As I fell out of alignment with late nights and bar crowds, a friend introduced me to Ecstatic Dance,” Ashley Lisi said. “Now, the medicine of movement hits much deeper, as I find myself honored and held by a like-minded community in pure consciousness. Plus, it’s a wonderful way to make new friends!”
Friendships are made and deepened through dance. At the closing circle participants sit together to introduce themselves and share a bit about their experience. This is where the most profound and the practical, the exuberant and the divine expressions of each dancer expand an individual practice into a community experience that can elevate the simple gathering into a profound place of catharsis and connection.
Brandy Boehmer shared, “Dance has been a really important part of my healing journey. Andrew takes genuine care in creating a smooth musical flow, as it allows our own journey through any range of emotions that may come up during the set. This creates a freedom for the mind and body to play together in movement and the remembrance that life is a dance!”
A new dancer Ari G. shared that, “This is an incredible community that fosters self-expression, movement, and radical authenticity. In a world where something is constantly expected of you, Andrew has created a space where you can come as you are and experience kindness, curiosity, and openness.”
The premise seems so simple, an open space and a good playlist, but the shared practice continues to surprise and inspire, as dancers share the journey they have traveled through their imaginations, the elements, and a true mind, body, and spirit experience. Class ends, but the effect carries through the week in smiles and joy and friendships of this shared happiness practice
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