Trance or Treat: An Alchemical Ecstatic Dance

Name: Trance or Treat: An Alchemical Ecstatic Dance
Start: 2025-10-23T19:30:00-05:00
End: 2025-10-23T21:00:00-05:00
Location: MYArts-Madison Youth Arts Center

Schedule

Thu Oct 23 2025 at 07:30 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

MYArts-Madison Youth Arts Center | Madison, WI

As the Wil-Mar Center is closed on 10/23 for its annual meeting, there won’t be the weekly Madison Ecstatic Dance held there that night.
For an alternative ecstatic dance offering, I have reserved Madison Youth Arts’ Room 4D (think ‘4D For Dance’) during the usual ecstatic dance time of 7:30-9:00PM on Thursday, October 23rd.
With Halloween/Samhain right around the corner, and thus the thinning of the veil, this playlist will feature lyrics that could be considered witchy, dark, spooky, or occult. I will be channeling the alchemical concept of "Nigredo" for this mix (more on that at the bottom).

**Trance or Treat: An Alchemical Ecstatic Dance**
·🜏· ─────── ·☽◯☾· ─────── ·⚸·
In honor of the Halloween/Samhain season, everyone is invited to participate in an ecstatic ritual of dancing and imbibing.
The roughly hour-long playlist will vary between music with mystical and supernatural themes in the lyrics, tracks with pounding & pulsating beats to help shake-loose stuck energies, and songs with looping & repeating elements intended to induce a trance-like state. All of the songs will be high-energy and danceable!
As a treat, there will be several brews for dancers to enjoy including mulled cider, ceremonial cacao, kanna, and kava.
The format for this evening will follow that of the regular Madison Ecstatic Dances — with an opening and closing sharing circle, an hour-long music playlist, and a $5 suggested donation.
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Wearing black outfits/clothing is encouraged in synch with the theme, but it's totally optional!

**NIGREDO:**
⋆༺𓆩☠︎𓆪༻⋆
In Alchemy, “Nigredo” (‘blackening’), is the first – and arguably most important – step for many of alchemy’s highest goals, including turning lesser metals into gold, and creating an elixir of life that can heal all ailments and grant immortality. During this process, all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked together until becoming a uniform black matter.
In psychology, Nigredo represents a profound spiritual breakdown followed by immense transformation. During a "dark night of the soul", an individual confronts their inner-shadow – their suffering, despair, doubt, negativity, pessimism, fear, ego, jealousy, and destructive patterns that hinder growth and fulfillment.
Through a figurative process of decomposition, rotting, shedding, and disintegration – entering into the darkness of Nigredo serves to dissolve old ways of doing & thinking, and deconstructing old beliefs to make way for a paradigm shift and new way of being.
Despite its darkness, Nigredo is only an incubation period, in which individuals seek seeds of light that reside within themselves, from which their new lives can arise.
Through this ecstatic dance, may we ignite an inner-fire that burns away toxic beliefs and old habits, helping us gain clarity on who we truly are meant to be.
𓁺✴𓁺
☾✨☽
🜁 🜂 🜃 🜄