Yes, it is freeing! You're welcome to join the "congregation" any Sunday from 9 AM to 11:30 AM (peaks at 10 AM) at the 418 Project, 418 Front Street, in downtown Santa Cruz.

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A little history on Dance Church--the 418 Project is a dance and performance space on the south side of downtown Santa Cruz (see www.four-eighteen.org ). They've had Friday night dance jams there for years.

About the middle of 2001, a young woman named Kerry did a community project for her dance studies at UC Santa Cruz that involved the realization of the idea of a Dance Church. She and her friend Michelle were inspired by their mutual friend Jim to create and publicize Dance Church.

Dance Church is basically a Sunday morning dance jam that tends to have more uplifting music. I have a hard time classifying the kind of music the DJs spin. It is the same kind of music played at the Friday night jams but with a more spiritual feel.

The way I look at it, the DJ is the "minister," the music is the "sermon," and the dancers are the "congregation."

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I got involved after returning from my first Burning Man in 2002 and feeling the need to find a similar community at home. I went to the 418 in the fall of '02 to get updated on the Friday jam and found Dance Church. I've been attending ever since. I was one of the dancers on hand at the creation of a Dance Church Camp at BM '03. I created a Yahoo! Group at groups.yahoo.com . I've done a couple of short video pieces on Dance Church.

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When the local BM regional "Burning Beach" hooked me up with Tribe.net, I thought it would be good to create the Dance Church tribe here as well.

My personal goal is to bring community dance and movement into my life every day. Last year at Burning Man I was able to do that, and the 418 Project and Dance Church help me work towards that goal the rest of the year.