 |
August 2023
Leaders Guild newsletter
contents
New Executive Director: Carlos Vakil Rojas
Guidance Council updates:
Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz and
Rahmana Dziubany
Announcing dance deepening interview in October
Recording of July dance deepening interview
Beyond Initiative Asia tour, September to December 2023
Announcing new dance events playlist on our youtube channel
What the dances mean to me
Leader recognitions
|
|
|
|
Meet Carlos Vakil Rojas,
new Executive Director
I am delighted to announce my successor as Executive Director, DUP International. Carlos Vakil Rojas will be taking on this role from September 1, and I have offered my services for a period of transition until I retire at the end of December. Please join me in welcoming Carlos to his new role.
With love,
Aziz Dixon
…………..
Carlos Vakil Rojas is a musician and certified DUP leader living in Colombia. Since 2009 he has been actively involved in Ecoaldea Atlantida's 7-day dance camps, and he facilitates DUP at Aldeafeliz Ecovillage, with his partner Matilda. As Vakil, he has been on the sufi path since 2011, with the name of ‘one who advocates for and protects his tribe’ (as befits his role in our organization!).
He is a passionate advocate of bottom-up community empowerment and inner work for positive transformation. As the founder of Aldeafeliz Ecovillage, he has devoted his life to creating sustainable living spaces, community organizing, and teaching. His social networking abilities enable him to work effectively with diverse communities, fostering unity and collaboration.
Carlos is a sustainable-building architect who has achieved significant milestones, including designing Colombia's first permacultural condo, implementing an eco-neighborhoods program in 180 communities, and leading an ecovillage training course that has empowered 500 students to contribute to the cause of sustainability.
Beyond his professional achievements, Carlos prioritizes family care and finds joy in dancing, singing, and spending time with his community and children. Carlos also loves to write, inspiring others with stories that promote positive change.
Carlos can be contacted here.
|
|
|
|
|
Guidance Council:
gratitude for Saadi
At the end of May Saadi retired from the Guidance Council after many years of dedicated service. The DUP IN Board joins with the many dance leaders worldwide who will want to pay tribute to Saadi’s work for the Dances over more than forty years.
Neil Douglas-Klotz (Saadi Shakur Chishti) co-founded the International Network for the Dances of Universal Peace in 1982 together with Murshida Tasnim Fernandez of the Sufi Order International, a project blessed and encouraged by Pir Moineddin Jablonski, the spiritual successor of Murshid Samuel Lewis. The project launched a network and resource center for a wider circle of those wishing to share the Dances and Walks worldwide.
Saadi and Tasnim also co-founded the original Mentor Teachers Guild and co-wrote the original guidelines for training and certification as well as the ethical agreements. They initiated the first camp solely dedicated to the Dances and Walks, which was held at Lama Foundation in New Mexico in August 1984, and also developed the training model still used today by many Dance mentors.
Saadi has been the channel for more than a hundred Dances, including about 40 from the Aramaic words of Jesus. Over the past 40 years he has presented the Dances and Walks at many conferences and colloquia internationally and was the first to take the Dances to Russia in 1988. He continues to experiment with pushing the envelope of what the Dances can express to help humanity express the “hidden treasure.” He is the author of a number of books on Middle Eastern mysticism including Prayers of the Cosmos and The Sufi Book of Life.
He writes:
“My life changed the first time I danced the Kalama Dance of Murshid Samuel Lewis in 1976. After that, there was no going back, even though part of me wanted to ignore the larger universe that had revealed itself. Since then I have been graced to travel with a few other like-hearted souls, including Tasnim Fernandez. When the transmission of the Dances and Walks expressed itself in a new way, she uniquely was there to help the roots spread. Roots don’t possess, they carry nourishment. A transmission doesn’t stop the flow and hold onto things, it transmits.”
Thank you, Saadi, for all your service to the transmission of the Dances and Walks!
|
|
|
|
|
Guidance Council:
welcome to Rahmana!
DUP International congratulates Rahmana Dziubany, who has been appointed to the Guidance Council.
The Guidance Council holds in trust the transmission of the Dances of Universal Peace and Walking Meditations in the lineage of Murshid Samuel L. Lewis. Four to six Senior Mentors, appointed by the Pir of the Sufi Ruhaniat International on a rotating basis, have the responsibility of guiding leaders and mentors by encouraging their spiritual expansion and personal development, supporting learning opportunities, setting guidelines for certification and for mentor acknowledgements, recognizing mentors, and upholding standards of conduct and human relationship that are in keeping with the transmission of the Dances of Universal Peace.
Rahmana Dziubany (Germany) is a senior mentor and a Murshida in the Ruhaniat. She has shared the Dances since 1983 in Germany and worldwide. Her first dance trainings and extensive travels in Europe helped to spread the dances, and with the support of Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz and Kamae Amrapali Miller the NDL was founded as the dance network base for the German speaking countries. In 1989 she seeded the dances in former communist Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and founded the MIR Project with the intention of bringing the dances to new regions and supporting upcoming leaders in currency weak regions though fundraising initiatives. The Mir Project has also sponsored leaders in Brazil and worked extensively in postwar Bosnia in refugee camps and educational settings.
Rahmana has been leading over 20 years with a team of artists and pedagogues the annual children dance and family program in the German family dance camp. One of her great passions has been to bring the dances to children and people with special needs. She has developed various training formats for German-wide academies and organizations with the aim of bringing dance, creative arts and spirituality in schools, kindergardens and psychiatric settings.
She is mother of a beautiful grown-up daughter and is caring for two Indian daughters, runs her own retreat center near Berlin and lives part of the year in southern India with hermit nuns where she also shares the dances in the ashram and associated social projects.
Ya Fattah to Rahmana in her new role!
|
|
|
|
|
Dance Deepening - October 12
The next interview will be on
Thursday OCTOBER 12th at 5 pm BST (London)
(6 pm in Germany, 9 am in California)
for your local time).
Rukmini Miller (DUP IN Board, New York, USA) will be our host, in conversation with Darvesha MacDonald (Chair of the Guidance Council, New Mexico, USA) and senior mentor Tasnim Fernandez (California, USA).
You can register now, using this link:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
A reminder will be sent nearer the time.
Any questions?
|
|
|
|
|
Dance Deepening -
recording of the July 13 interview
Here is a link to the recording for the interview on July 13th hosted by
Khabir Mayer-Glauninger (DUP IN Board, Germany), in conversation with Pir Shabda Kahn and senior mentor Josine Haqiqah Zon (France):
The recording can also be accessed by members of the Leaders Guild, here: https://dancesofuniversalpeace.org/lgarticles.php - scroll down to
Dance Deepening interviews with senior mentors
or look for the Youtube icon (red triangle) on the menu bar on our home page https://dancesofuniversalpeace.org/home.shtm, to locate our youtube channel: select the playlist for Dance Deepening interviews, then See full playlist.
Any questions?
|
|
|
|
|
Beyond Initiative in Asia, 2023
The collaboration with Global Ecovillage Network continues: in their recent newsletter is a beautiful article with more details – follow this link.
|
|
|
|
|
Youtube channel - videos of events
Shivadam, our Webmaster has kindly set up a new playlist in our youtube channel, so we can showcase videos of dance events.
Please explore our increasing resource base, and if you have videos of events you would like to share, and you have permission from the participants to upload the videos to our website, you may like to contact Shivadam.
|
|
|
|
|
What the Dances mean to me
Lam Nguyen, Vietnam
(translated into English by Trang Nguyen)
Two of our dance family have recently felt inspired to describe what the Dances mean to them: here are their words.
............................
Dancing in the DUP circle with my full presence, I am sincerely touched by the vitality of this community.
In this circle, I can be alive without trying to become someone, I can feel special without trying to perform. All there is to do is follow the teaching, sensing into the rhythm, connecting with my body and going with the circle’s flow - the endless river of life.
Our individuality is both to be shared and to be kept to one’s own in the DUP. The way it shows up is graceful, humble and authentically human.
Mysteriously, the circle gracefully invites for our personal and collective wounds, in the same way someone patiently waits for a child who has been hiding timidly from the social stereotypes and prejudices to step into the light.
And then, the circle opens with loving eyes, open arms and kind hearts. When the space is well held with music and lyrics, the invitation becomes strong enough for that child to feel safe and courageous. Then the child comes out to play.
How beautiful it is that, in the DUP circle, we merge but each of us is still fully visible. We each become a part of something larger than ourselves.
Here I am not hidden or lonely.
Here I am a tiny drop in the infinite ocean.
And I am the ocean itself.
|
|
|
|
|
Words which came during the
DUP camp in Gokarna
Anand Kabir, India
I felt the stillness of Shiva,
I discovered the power of Shakti,
I rejoiced the poetry of Rumi, The emptiness of Buddha,
And the melody of Krishna.
It’s here,
Meditation bloomed into Celebration,
Bodies merged into the Ocean,
Tears melted into Compassion,
Laughter grew into Awareness,
Breaths transformed into Oneness,
And divine beings raised their Consciousness.
There is so much ease,
There is so much ease,
Here in the dances of universal peace.
|
|
|
|
|
Leader Recognitions
The Guidance Council would like to congratulate and acknowledge all the Walks and Dance leaders who have been certified or recognized at a new level since our last full newsletter:
Senior Mentor
Rafia Sieglin, Germany
Josine Haqiqah Zon, France
Mentor
Matthew Heyse-Moore, England
Nicola Inana Prelle, Germany
Sandra Sunfire, Wales
Mentor in Training
Jihan Gigi Amer, CA, USA
André Uwais Bernard, NJ, USA
Jemila Janice Felisko, FL, USA
Bettina Shakura Heidsieck, Germany
Amira Judy Jones, GA, USA
Ute Amrita Kimpel, Germany
Raghunandana Ramachandra Das Sanchez Vargas, Peru
Cornelia Schoen, Germany
Hadas Shamay, Israel
Cynthia Ishtar Valenzuela, Mexico
Certified Leader
Francesco Baffa, Italy
Carolina Bonelli, Brazil
Stella Cranwell, Scotland
Gritta Habiba Malika Lange Edda, Germany
Katinka Sitara Charlot Victoria Harnisch, Germany
Pegah Khoie, Spain
Carolina Andrea Osorio Lopez, Colombia
Monica Shamaya Pablos Velez Cantu, Mexico
Diana Patricia Ramirez Roman, Colombia
Miwa Oseki Robbins, SC, USA
Alfredo Salazar, Ecuador
Douglas Stevenson, TN, USA
Akmaral Tazhigarina, Kazakhstan
Mentored, previously musician leader
Sergio Santos, Chile
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
