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The history of Trance Dance

This kind of Trance Dance started with Frank Natale. A gifted teacher and author, Frank Natale was the founder and creative director of "T.N.I. - The Natale Institute" and later on of Frank Natale & Associates, an experiential education organisation presenting seminars throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Natale's teaching emphasises self-awareness, personal responsibility and choice as paths to conscious living and spiritual growth. Committed to music and dance movement as transformative healing forces and named Professor Trance in the music business, Natale co-produced a body of best-selling world trance dance music, including the albums Shaman’s Breath, Medicine Trance, Rites of Passage, Dance Your Animal, Spirit Animal and Breath of Fire. Experiential seminars created by Frank Natale include Trance Dance, Soul Hunting, Rites of Passage, Touch of Passion, Elements of a Ritual and Teacher Plants. Exploring shamanism and the Goddess culture. Born in New York (USA), during the Sixties and Seventies, Natale studied and worked with many leaders of the modern human consciousness movement, including Charles Dederich, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Baba Muktananda, J. Krishnamurti and Buckminster Fuller. In 1967, Natale co-founded Phoenix House in New York, which became the largest residential treatment facility for chemical dependency in the United States. After serving as clinical director for twelve years, Natale chose to leave Phoenix House and focus his work on successful, functioning personalities who want to experience new levels of spirituality, creativity and aliveness.

After leading many seminars around the United States, Frank founded T.N.I. in Texas, in the south of the United States, and later in 1987 Frank moved to Europe. It is beneficial for those who love Trance Dance to know and to understand the origin and context of how the kind of Trance Dance we use was born. You should know that Frank Natale was presenting “trance” experiences, including blindfolded dancing and drumming, in 1984, in workshops in Tulsa, USA. Those were powerful experiences. Then Frank moved to Europe and created his headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1987. In these days he began producing the music that became Trance Dance a few years later. In late 1987, Frank was encouraged by the European fascination with Goddess culture and native culture wisdom and shamanism. This renewed Frank’s interest in long-form dance experiences that began some twenty years earlier when Frank and 5Rhythms creator Gabrielle Roth became friends at The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, where they met and shared their love for music and dance. Frank Natale passed away in Hawaii on his birthday in 2002, surrounded by family and friends. He left his work to a group of people; till today, we keep taking care and making sure the work of Frank is well done. These people are Ralph Cissne, Ichiko Natale and Apurva Mastinu.
For more information, music and books from Frank Natale
please get in contact with our Headquarter:
www.franknatale.com - Ralph Cissne - Natale Life Skills

The history of Trance Dance

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The first Trance Dance Presenters Training was held in Amsterdam at the T.N.I. headquarters. Frank was presenting trance dance experiences, including blindfolded dancing and drumming, soul hunting, touch of passion and more. The Energizers Training was born. Those were deep and powerful days. Afterwards, the training was held many more times in different places all around Europe: Italy, Holland, Germany, France, Spain, England, Austria and many more countries started to know about Trance Dance. That was the moment we began to produce the music that became the Trance Dance Music. Many different music productions were done with the contribution of several amazing musicians and under Frank's supervision: Graham Dear, Richard Sullivan in London, Alain Eskinasi, Pim Kilian in Amsterdam, Joe Galdo from Island Records in Miami and many others. More Trance Dance music productions were done by Vincenzo Bianco and collaborators in Berlin , Apurva Mastinu in Turin and others. The Trance Dance book was published in English, German and Italian. Videos about Trance Dance were on MTV's programs. A world tour was done to present Shaman's Breath - the new music album produced by Island Record - and the book published by Penguin Book London. Frank and Jason Natale and Apurva Mastinu travelled the whole western world producing events worldwide: South Africa, North America, Brasil and many cities in Europe. Manuals about trance dancing, videos, interviews and more materials were produced and published as well. In those days Kalyana Chiara Bosio created the logo of Trance Dance. In a few years we had more than 100 presenters active all over Europe, Australia, North and South America and more. The Ibiza "Crystal Cave" was done and we started holding shamanic retreats on the magic island. More headquarters were done in Berlin, Torino, Varese, Paris, Munich, London, Wien and many more cities promoted the work and the message of the Energizers.





​In Germany and in Italy the T.N.I. institute was very successful thanks to an incredible work done by Markus Keppler (a.k.a. Doctor K) in Germany and from Shaida Cartellà, Khalis Mattoni, Apurva Mastinu and many others that we are sorry are not named here. The success was possible thanks to the incredible contribution of so many great people, women and men, friends and colleagues. A great support to make Frank Natale's work visible in Europe was given by his brother and friend Veeresh Yuson and the staff of Osho Humaniversity in Holland.
In the United States a huge contribution was made by Ralph Cissne and Wilbert Alix. In a few years we had thousands of people Trance Dancing regularly. From small or big meditation centres to huge Disco Clubs and big Raves. Trance Dance Presenters created a huge, worldwide movement with trance dancing and shamanism active all over Europe, North America, South America, India and South Africa. Different music albums, books in 4 languages, videos, and more were on the market. The most important thing was that thousands of people were able to heal, to become more aware thanks to Trance Dance and the form of shamanism we were using and developing within this movement. The Natale Institute was a reality that moved thousands of people all over Europe with retreats, seminars, and training. After Frank passed away in 2002, many different presenters kept on presenting and developing Trance Dance around the world.
A great and important contribution was given by Wilbert Alix, Apurva Mastinu and Ralph Cisnne. New Trance Dance presenters in Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, England, Netherlands, Italy, France and the United States and many more countries were created. Ralph Cisnne, an author and healer from California, is currently taking care of the music, the books, and the seminar materials by Frank Natale and their associates.











Eventi aziendali


Professor Trance & The Energizers

We are an international tribe of creative people who experience the Great Mother Earth as the original deity and the intelligence within nature. We bring both energy and aliveness into our lives and the lives of others by participating in the shamanic practice of the Energizers created by our spiritual elders and made it contemporary. The neo-shamanic practices we use are cross-cultural and exist on every continent on the planet and have been used to achieve states of ecstatic healing for many millennia.
These practices include Trance Dance, Soul Hunting, Spirit Animal journeys, Teacher Plants, Rites of Passage, Initiations and Energy ceremonies and Drumming Circle.
These rituals are conducted worldwide in our Rituals, Seminars, Training and Retreats.
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We are an international tribe of presenters who facilitate Trance Dance rituals. We bring both energy and aliveness into our lives and the lives of others by using the shamanic practice of the Energizers in its original form without changing it. Our work is to keep it the way it is. To become a Trance Dance Presenter, you need to apply at our Trance Dance Presenters Training.
This is a short story of the Trance Dance movement. These incredible years of joy, success and sharing wisdom were possible thanks to the contribution of thousands of people, which we acknowledge here, and to whom we apologise if we forgot somebodies' names. Thanks to all the musicians and their music: without music, we would not dance!
Thanks to Great Spirit.
Let's Keep on Dancing. Passion, Respect and Dance.
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