Natalie Southgate & Douglas Channing Chakradance Founders

“Natalie and Douglas offer fascinating insights into the effect of movement on chakras.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Natalie & Douglas in the Chakradance Studio, Sydney, Australia

Leading thousands through Chakradance at Dr Doreen Virtue's acclaimed Intuitive Training Course.

“It was such a pleasure having you both here for the Seduction of Spirit – everyone loved your program.” Alisha – Chopra Center

“Natalie and Douglas brought their extraordinary Chakradance as two evening programs for the Seduction of Spirit Seminar at the Deepak Chopra Center (Carlsbad, CA) in November 2004. What a treat! The lower chakra music brough a feeling of dancing around a community fire in ancient tribal times, giving all the many participants a releasing, rhythmic rapture. Inhibitions were banished by the easy way Natalie and Douglas handled the eyes-closed group. The next evening brought music for the upper chakras, and we were ecstatic dervishes and angels. What a wonderful event, blissful and freeing!” Stephanie

One man in his sixties didn’t know what a chakra was before the class, but he shared with us afterwards the joy he experienced in the dance. He said he came to know what chakras were because he could feel them. Then he described the visual images that rose within him during the dance. We both smiled, for this man encountered what we have experienced. We call it the homecoming. When someone discovers the power and energy that resides within him or her it is like coming home.

We looked back from the Chopra Center to our own homecomings and Chakradance beginnings...

Chakradance Beginnings
Chakradance began life in London in 1998. Natalie had always been drawn to the power of chakras through her work as a trained healer. At the time she was also studying Jungian Psychology at the Society of Analytical Psychology and Healing. A dancer all her life (she studied dance throughout her childhood), Natalie let her interest guide her now to connect to alternative and shamanic dance. Ultimately, she journeyed to Paris from London to take a course in spontaneous dance therapy.

All the elements of Natalie’s homecoming were starting to coalesce – the study of the chakras; of Jungian Psychology; of the interconnections between mind, body and spirit, and of the various effects of music and dance. The further Natalie engaged in her own healing dances, the more she began to notice that certain music carried a unique resonance with different chakra centres. The power of this music mixed with free flowing movements seemed to bring her home into an inner dance of her true self.

These experiences led Natalie into the realisation that a person can find another way to enter a deeper relationship with the chakras. She had already begun co-teaching a beginners’ healing workshop on the chakras, but she felt she had discovered a method to experience what can’t be taught, and this experience could be felt by anyone.

In September 1998 her first Chakradance workshop was held in the Amadeus Centre in London. Ten people attended the first class. Chakradance’s inclusiveness was immediately evident in the wide range of backgrounds and life-stages of those first participants. They ranged from a seventeen year old man to an eighty-year old woman. Chakradance was definitely for all ages.

Natalie moved back to Sydney, Australia (her hometown) in November 2000. She continued to synthesise all the elements of Chakradance , fine-tuning the classes and sourcing and mixing the ‘right’ music. Finally, it was time to introduce Sydney to Chakradance . The first workshop in Sydney was in June 2001.

Douglas’ homecoming came about from a different path. Douglas was working at an advertising agency, when one day he picked up a Chakradance brochure. At that point Douglas was not familiar with the intricacies of the chakra system. Like most people, he only had a cursory understanding. But Douglas felt home calling. He recalled the joy he experienced in his childhood of studying classical ballet. From the age of four, Douglas trained in ballet, however, his greatest joy was at the end of class when the teacher left time for creative improvisations. He loved the freedom to let his body shape itself to the music. The brochure triggered not only a memory, but also a desire to reconnect to that part of him that had lain dormant. By seven o’clock that night, Douglas was coming home in his first Chakradance class.

He was hooked. He did back to back courses in the nine-week cycles and was challenged to go deeper. It was during this time that he decided he wanted to go in a different direction with his work. In a wonderful moment of synchronicity, Natalie was also looking for that right person to join her in Chakradance to help her expand the classes to meet the growing demand.

In January 2003 we did our first workshop together at NAISDA, the aboriginal dance college. Our classes exploded. We were invited to run workshops all over Australia and for the next year we travelled to where the interest called us. We were invited to lead thousands through the healing moves and sounds of Chakradance at Dr Doreen Virtue’s acclaimed Angel Intuitive training courses across Australia. We ultimately realised we needed to train more facilitators to keep up with the demand. We spent two years developing a training programme and have now trained people from across Australia, as well as in the US, UK, Europe and Asia.

As for us, we continue to develop new workshops, support our facilitators and run more trainings. We plan to expand further through Europe, Asia and the United States, wherever the work leads us. If we have learned one thing, it is this: wherever Chakradance goes, it will feel like coming home.