The Witch’s Dance
A 5-day immersion into the mysteries of embodied magic and ritual movement through the transformational force of the witch
June 18th - 22nd 2026
Summer Solstice
Texas Hill Country
What is the Witch’s Dance?
In this retreat, you will be initiated into The Witch’s Dance as a mystery school of embodied magic—a ritual practice grounded in elemental movement and techniques of attention and sensation that summon, channel, and amplify the witch’s force into direct, transformative experience in and through the body.
Drawing from modern Western witchcraft, ritual dramaturgy, physical theatre, dance, and somatic practice—and informed by both academic and practice-based research—The Witch’s Dance is a deeply intentional, experiential method for accessing elemental and extraphysical currents, embodying and directing their power in magical work, and using the body itself as a magical tool for conjuration, attunement, and transformation.
Together we will move with the force of the witch through an elemental cartography of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. Within each elemental threshold, we will create and discover the conditions for and means of access into deeper experiences of magic, enchantment and embodied power through guided journeys of intuitive and responsive elemental movement and collective ritual acts that engage deeply with the witch’s transformative force.
This is for you if:
You are drawn to embodied practice, whether you are an experienced dancer or are at the beginning of your movement journey.
You are either a practitioner of magic, witchcraft, or ritual arts who wants to deepen your work through the body, or you are simply curious about exploring your relationship to magic and the witch experientially and somatically, beyond theory and metaphor.
You are an artist or practitioner seeking techniques for expanding your capacity to sense, feel, and do otherwise.
You long for a more intuitive, elemental, and body-based relationship to energy, perception, pleasure, and power. Perhaps a return or recommitment to connection with nature, the more-than-self and more-than-human.
You are interested in ritual performance, embodied magic, and witchcraft in/as creative practice. (Experience or affinity with any of these subjects is not a requirement to participate. No previous experience in ritual, dance, theatre or performance is required either, only your curiosity and willingness to explore the body-mind as a site of magic, transformation, and personal agency.)
Facilitated by:
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Jacquelyn Marie Shannon is a theatre, dance, and ritual artist, educator, and witch scholar-practitioner. As a PhD candidate at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York City, she is currently researching The Witch’s Dance and the use of performance and embodied practice in producing experiences of magic and enchantment.
She has performed, presented research, taught, and facilitated ritual experiences across the US and internationally. Over the last ten years, Jacquelyn has led hundreds of ritual movement workshops, master classes, and intensives, including “The Witch’s Dance” and “Ghostly Practice,” a constellation of movement and ritual techniques for working with memory, haunting, spirit, and the more-than-human through the body, heavily informed by nearly twenty years of training in Japanese butoh, expressionist dance, physical and psychodramatic theatre, ritual practice and performance.
For more about Jacquelyn, click here.
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Chelsea Gay is an Austin-based Isis KA initiate, ecstatic movement, breathwork, emotional alchemy and embodiment facilitator who mixes her love of dance, pleasure and play along with her professional skills of event production and sacred space holding to weave somatic experiences that leave you feeling expanded and aligned with your highest joy! She is the founder of Joy Scouts, a global movement that spreads laughter, love, pleasure, and creativity through her signature Embodied Goddess, Feline Flow, and Conscious Contact workshops. Her mission is to help women reclaim their power, feel safe to be seen in their feminine expression and activate your highest joy so much so, that it spills over and radiates into the world around you. In this retreat she will hold space for you to explore your inner world, transcend through the shadows and liberate your most authentic, sparkly and radiant expression through playful somatic practice, ritual and ceremony.
A castle in the Texas Hill Country
The retreat will be held at Castle Bend, a beautifully restored castle crafted from native locally sourced limestone in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, surrounded by a grove of mature live oak, the Castle stands watch over natural rock outcroppings which cascade downwards to the spring-fed Hickory Creek with a private 10-foot swimming hole.
The grounds also feature a flock of peacocks, a pool, hot tub, sauna, outdoor limestone patio dance floor, and two fire pits for dancing under an endless starry sky.
Prices & etc
In-Person: 6/18-22/26
Online-Gathering: date tbd
Location: Marble Falls, Texas (near Austin)
# of spots: 8
What is included:
5 days / 4 nights lodging in a Texas Hill Country castle
Choice of private or shared room
3 nourishing, chef-prepared meals each day
Daily somatic, ritual movement, and embodiment practices guided by Jacquelyn & Chelsea
What is not included:
Prices do not include flights or transportation.
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