Inception
"To watch someone dance is to hear their heart speak" - Unknown
From twirling under my father's arm, to attending dance lessons, exams and competitions, and later raving on a hill to the sunrise, I was always dancing.
Until I stopped.
Life as a single mum and nurse took centre stage as my energy was directed toward providing for my son and caring for my patients. While I am so proud of this time in my life, it was accompanied by an overarching sadness. A loss of my spirit. The essence of who I am. Abandonment of myself and some devastating life choices culminated in a chronic pain condition, Fibromyalgia. I lost my career, my partner and my home. The subsequent years were spent drugged up on pain killers, spending days at a time in bed. I couldn't have danced if I tried.
Then, the world changed. My world changed. Nursing my father through Dementia and grieving his departure from this life stirred in me a tiny spark of hope that life no longer needed to be this way. I knew I needed to heal. That's when the universe stepped in. Suddenly, I found myself walking beside people who could see me. Beautiful souls who have helped me turn that spark into a flame.
On a sunny, spring day, in the most beautiful garden in the Cotswolds, as I struggled with a flare up, I was asked,
"when are you not in pain?"
I answered,
"when I'm dancing."
The response,
"then do more of that!"
I've barely stopped dancing since.
Over the past two years I have gone through the process of withdrawing from all the medication I'd been dependent on and replacing them with a holistic approach including yoga, meditation and breathwork. In moments of stillness and contemplation, I received the message to support others through their healing journey through facilitating ecstatic dance events and I knew the perfect person to join me on the mission.
James Huxley and I created our first event in May 2023 and shared it with the very people who inspired me to live again, in that beautiful garden where it all began. It was pure magic and far exceeded our wildest dreams. I knew in that moment that I had lost nothing and found my true purpose.
Together, we are Senshun Dance.
Lizanne O'Driscoll
"Where words fail, music speaks" - Hans Christian Andersen
Music has been a major focus in my life for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories of music are listening to the radio in the car with my mum. The music would be an eclectic mix of genres including pop, soul & disco. Although I didn't know it at the time, those moments in the car played a pivotal role in developing my understanding and love for a wide variety of musical styles. I am a firm believer that all music has its place. There are times when we want to jump around the room in joy and there are times when need to sit and feel through our emotions. There is music for these occasions and everything in between. There have been times where music has been able to perfectly convey how i'm feeling, no words could better sum up the moment and that is why music is so special. Music holds memories, we can be transported back in time in an instant and relive those moments we hold dear. Music is a universal way of connecting with another.
Regardless of what you believe, we can share the dancefloor.
My love and curiosity for different types of music naturally led into becoming a DJ when I was 14 which has evolved into playing regularly for a variety of bars and clubs. Whilst playing for yourself is great, there is something special about connecting an entire room of people through the right selection of songs. DJ'ing evolved into the urge to create my own music, and by following this calling I eventually found myself travelling to Ibiza for an extensive music production course. It is fascinating how the breadcrumbs begin to appear once you start to follow the inner whispers of your intuition, as I met a guy there who told me about his musical journey of studying music at Abbey Roads Studios.
That the was the eureka moment right there, why don't I commit to the process and study what I love? It wasn't long before I was accepted to study music production and I was leaving my steady job as a postman.
The process of studying music allowed me to meet so many wonderful people. One of those wonderful people is Lizanne. In a short space of time we have come together through our mutual love of music and the power it has to heal and enrich our lives. We are committed to creating musical journeys that are curated with love and care, exploring a wide variety of musical styles conveying a wide variety emotions. From my own experience I have found ecstatic dance to be a challenge of maintaining flow through these varying emotions. I feel that our musical journeys represent one of the greatest challenges we face: to keep moving forward to and to fully let go and be free.
We would love to see you at one of our events so that we may share our love of music and dance with you.
James Huxley
