Welcome to
Ritual Play
Ecstatic
Cathartic
Alive
Ritual Play is a guided, immersive dance-based experience that aims to bring participants into altered states of consciousness through movement, rhythm, and environmental attunement. In these states, there is a profound, otherworldly potential for psychological release, collective dissolution, and personal transformation. This is a participatory group ritual, meaning you, the participant, will be an active part of the experience, rather than a passive observer.
Ritual Play is a modern adaptation of Dionysian traditions from Ancient Greece.
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The Format
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The full Ritual Play experience is a 4-hour ritual in three parts.
Phase 1: Separation — participants are guided through movement, breath, and shared presence exercises to cross the threshold from ordinary reality into extraordinary reality.
Phase 2: Liminality — external movement cues cease, bodies dissolve, and minds enter trance-states. Aided by music and entrainment with the environment and other bodies.
Phase 3: Incorporation — movement and breath cues return to guide dancers gently back to ordinary reality. They are then given time and space to reconnect with themselves, integrate their experience, and connect with others over fruit and cacao.Ritual Play is a substance-free experience for adults aged 21+
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The Mini Ritual is a 1-1.5 hour experience designed for festivals and music & dance events. The entire experience is guided and closely mirrors Phase 1: Separation from the Full Ritual Experience. The movement, breath, and presence exercises are designed to work on participant nervous systems and allow them greater flow, freedom, and emotion in their being.
While the work is deep, the experience itself is light-hearted, high-energy, and fun — a perfect experience to prime people for dancing and letting loose at festivals and dance events.
If you are an organizer or planner interested in bringing Ritual Play to your event, please fill out the contact form on this page.
Creator Bio
Creator Bio
Kristin Simkus is a multidisciplinary performance artist and embodiment practitioner on a mission to reconnect humans to their full capacity for aliveness.
Kristin’s passion for dance fully awakened in the volcanic jungles of Hawaiʻi Island — the birthplace of both ancient hula and modern Ecstatic Dance. After experiencing the intensely transformative power of dance firsthand, she committed to creating the circumstances to facilitate similar transformations in others.
A Meisner-trained actor and certified teacher of yoga and qigong, she brings both emotional presence and deep somatic awareness to her work.
Before she was an artist, Kristin had a brief career as an industrial engineer.
Contact Form
Questions? Collaboration requests? I’d love to hear from you!