Put on your dancing shoes, Islanders: there's a new dance collective in town.
Last summer, Connie Quayle and Val Lange began seeking opportunities on Cortes Island to start a dance temple collective.
They hosted a dance temple in August and have managed to double their efforts with Mary Lloyd and Dancing Wolf joining in. This weekend, Lloyd and Wolf are hosting the first Dance Temple Cortes event of 2023. Dance temple is a form of ecstatic dance, also known as "movement medicine," the organizers say.
Lloyd is a Victoria-based silent disco DJ that started offering events and rentals on Cortes in 2022 and is calling on the community to dance this Saturday.
“Just bring your bodies, bring yourselves, whatever is moving in you and your life at this time. It's a pretty amazing space. It can be really healing and transformative and also just really playful and fun.”
The organizers also encourage enthusiastic locals to join the collective and help host future events more regularly: the team of four dancers are hoping with more involvement, they can possibly offer a monthly event on Cortes.
“We're really calling in other people that wanna come and help and make it a true collective and collaborative,” Lloyd said.
At the the Jan. 28 event, doors open at 6:30 p.m. at Mansons Hall. If locals want to volunteer for the event, they can contact Lloyd at mary@silentdjvictoria.com. To learn more about the collective, Dance Temple Cortes, contact Connie Quayle at mooncatmagicals.com.
To hear more about Dance Temple Cortes, listen to the CKTZ Update below: