The Dances of Universal Peace are a living spiritual practice in motion — simple circle dances that weave together sacred phrases, music, and gentle movement from the world’s wisdom traditions.
Imagine a room where strangers become a circle. Hands join. A chant begins — perhaps a line from Rumi, a Hebrew blessing, a Sanskrit mantra, a prayer of St. Francis, or a Zikr from the Sufi lineage. The melody repeats. Feet move in unison. Voices gather strength. Something shifts. The boundary between “me” and “we” thins.
These dances were first developed in the late 1960s by Samuel L. Lewis, a Sufi mystic who believed that sacred phrases should not remain trapped in books or temples but should be embodied — breathed, sung, and stepped into life. His vision was audaciously simple: if people could pray together with their bodies, across traditions, peace would no longer be an abstraction.
No experience is needed. There are no performances and no spectators. Every dance is taught in the moment. The movements are easy. The emphasis is not on choreography but on presence.
The dances draw from many traditions — Sufi, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Native, and more — not to blur differences into a bland soup, but to reveal a shared human longing beneath them all. The sacred phrases remain intact. The heart behind them becomes audible.
At their core, the Dances of Universal Peace are a practice of embodied unity. They are devotional without dogma, communal without coercion, ancient in spirit yet freshly improvised each time the circle forms.