GURDJIEFF MOVEMENTS


Sacred Dances are essentially a mode of  communication. They  can  transmit a universal  language that  promotes a deeper understanding of being.

The Movements  created by Gurdjieff  are uniquely his own and are a spiritual legacy of incalculable significance.




HISTORY

The Movements were created by Gurdjieff during the period of his life from:

The early Movements - 1918 until 1924  
The later Movements - 1939 until 1949.

Gurdjieff Movements can be divided into seven categories:

-Rhythms
-The six 'Obligatories'
-Ritual exercises
-Woman Dances
-Men's ethnic dances-'dervish' and Tibetan
-Sacred temple dances and Tableaux
-Thirty-nine Series of Movements (partially eneagrammatic series)


The early  Movements  he created are all in   the  first  six  categories, and they  were performed on stage in 1923 in Paris and in 1924 in America.

The  later  Movements  are  all in  the last  category or the Thirty-nine Series. These are a selection made by Gurdjieff  out  of exercises  given  by  him during  the  last period of his life, from 1939 until his death in 1949.

Gurdjieff  taught  movements classes  for different groups of  people  almost everyday,  as he  was approaching  the last decade of his life until his death.

Today his 250 or so assembled  'Movements' represent to many  of us the Work's immaculate heart

"Sacred dances convey certain beliefs and truths and transmit various kinds of energies to people."

"The innermost use of Sacred Dances is where it is not for oneself, as in one's own training and development, not for others, where it is for manifestation and transmission, but an act of worship. One dances for God, or for the Sacred Image in which one believes. When the dance is in this form it is truly sacred and lifts people into communion. This is the purpose of it. "  J.G.Bennett