I had my first taste of ecstasy as a teenager in the early 90s rave scene. Back then, raves were a new phenomenon fueled by electronic dance music, MDMA, and an ethos of peace, love, unity, and respect. Dancing deep into the night, I stumbled into a world of wild expression, deep connection, and altered consciousness that felt radically different from the world I knew. However, when drugs and commerce took over the scene, I stepped away and felt lost. I refocused my attention on studying psychology, and after graduating, I worked as a psychologist on a psychiatric ward while further training in Gestalt therapy. The cerebral nature of the profession and the rigidity of the ward stood in sharp contrast to the anarchy and bliss of the raves. I felt disembodied and stuck. In search of something more embodied, I attended a short 5Rhythms workshop. Dancing the 5Rhythms was like a lifting of amnesia. My body remembered dancing into ecstasy, and I simply knew: this is it. I quit my job, changed my lifestyle and dedicated myself to the dancing path. Seven years later, under the guidance of Gabrielle Roth, I became a 5Rhythms teacher. For many years, the 5Rhythms were my primary practice: a powerful integration of dance, psychology, ritual, and personal growth. But dance kept calling me further. In 2009, an intense collaboration with dancer and choreographer Sarah Kate Gardiner led to a community art project that also confronted me with how much more there was to discover beyond the 5Rhythms world. That realization sparked another decade of study in somatics, Contact Improvisation, dance improvisation, and performance. In 2016, I joined the Ecstatic Dance team in Amsterdam, first as a ceremony leader, later also as a DJ. The open format of Ecstatic Dance, welcoming dancers from all disciplines, attracted me as I was exploring different dance practices. As the Ecstatic Dance scene grew, however, it got more club-oriented and less conscious. This inspired Tom Goldhand, Caroline S’Jegers, and me to found Heart of the Dance in 2018. We made it our mission to honour and support the roots, essence, and potential of ecstatic dance by educating new dance facilitators and DJs. In 2026, we took that mission to a wider platform: the Conscious Dance Academy — a home for all forms of conscious dance. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope it gives some background to who I am and why I do what I do. I hope to hear your story one day.