Ethiopian dance (group)

Ethiopian Dance was a dance group (duh!) led by Sw Neeraj (potential middle name unknown) which appears to have started in late 1975. It operated on a daily drop-in basis, like Music Group and was offered for an unknown time, but at least two years. And in a list of all the current groups in Above All, Don't Wobble (Jan 1976), it is referred to as the African Dance group and described as meeting "for an hour each day for the fifteen days between camps". That probably should be twenty days.

It is not mentioned in The Sound of Running Water's two-page ostensibly thorough survey/graph of 70s groups, which does in fact indicate that Music Group started in Oct 1975. Its only "official" mention is in Hammer on the Rock, where Maneesha records the "dance group's" darshan on 7 Jan 1976, writing:

The dance group, with its fourteen members, and its leader, Neeraj, performed for Bhagwan tonight. Bhagwan had suggested last darshan that they try dancing in couples, a man with a woman, rather than in a line or a circle, as they had been doing.

He said that these dances were in a way a form of courtship, and that the dancers would get more from it if the male and female energies flowed together.

The seven couples went down to the area below the darshan porch where Bhagwan sits and demonstrated the steps of the Ethiopian dance that Neeraj had taught them. Then the music changed to a Brazilian rhythm and the dancers abandoned any structure and individually did their own thing.

One particular sannyasin almost completely lost herself in the dancing. She was like a woodland sprite -- all legs and arms and black hair, skipping and hopping, whirling and crouching, jumping and zig-zagging among all the others, incredibly not bumping into anyone at all!

After ten minutes or so the music came to an end and the exhausted dancers came slowly back to their places. For several minutes everyone sat, some with eyes closed, others with heads bowed, dancers and those who watched -- silent except for the laboured breathing of the exhausted dancers and from somewhere behind the group. the quiet sobbing of the woodland sprite ....

Something happened that evening, for those few seconds, to everyone present. The energy seemed to continue to vibrate, to linger on in the air a little longer, as if reluctant to leave so quickly.

Neeraj is an Ethiopian Swami, a musician, in particular a drummer. See discussion for a brief reference to the parameters of the group from him.

This article about a Pune One group is a stub. To add information or share a story, contact a wiki editor here.