Silvija Tomcik on 5Rhythms®, healing, and navigating the chaos of our times
I first heard about Silvija Tomcik at a 5Rhythms workshop led by Thierry François in an autumn-colored Stockholm. As the dancers thanked the space that had been holding us for the weekend, Thierry suggested we prepare the ground for (yes, his wife) Silvija, who was scheduled to visit and lead a workshop just a few months later. When I heard the ground reverberate back with a drum-like calling, I just knew I had to dance with her. That was a year ago. Since then, Silvija has challenged some of my most stubborn preconceived notions, asked earth-shaking questions, gently (once again) pointed me toward my breath, and dared me to unbox myself, to find that unthreaded path in my own inner wilderness, which I did not even know existed.
As a writer and editor used to working with words and ideas, the silent experience-based dance floor is an interesting, and sometimes challenging place. Therefore, I was thrilled to meet Silvija for a conversation about where she comes from, her love for 5Rhythms, Gabrielle Roth, the practice, and how she sees it reflected in our chaotic and troubled world.
Tell me a bit about the cultural context you grew up in, the Balkans of your childhood.
“When I was a child, I was one of Tito’s pioneers. At school in communist Yugoslavia, we would recite an oath, where every sentence started with ‘p’ as in ‘pioneer.’ We promised to be honest, to work hard, to do good, to serve the community – it was beautiful. I had no clue about the shadow of communism then. My mother’s uncle had been a partisan, fighting Nazis during the war. He was considered a warrior and a hero in Zagreb. My family was proud of that heritage. Pioneer and Warrior – what I do with 5Rhythms stems from that. I was a pioneer in bringing 5Rhythms to the Balkans, and every time I show up on the dance floor, I do it as a warrior.”
As a warrior…?!
“Yes, when I teach, I come prepared to meet and hold people’s deepest fears. Sometimes, dancers see me as an authority. If they carry a trauma with a teacher or with a parent – a trauma with punishment and power, it is all projected onto me. They fight me because it is safe for them to fight me, but they are fighting the person who was oppressing them. I can hold that by being grounded and open-hearted, knowing that I am not that person.
Warrior is one of the archetypes I need to embody as a 5Rhythms teacher. Gabrielle Roth worked a lot with archetypes, Mother, Father, Wild Son, Mistress…Mother is also a strong aspect of me – asking if people are warm enough, if they had enough time for lunch break… it is important to know what is needed at the specific moment.”
My feeling as a dancer is that you know exactly what is needed – on a group level and for me as an individual dancer. How do you do that?
“Through 5Rhythms, I have built a container of trust. Kids are born with that trust. They can feel what is going on. But often, they are looking for their parent’s confirmation. When we don’t confirm something or even worse lie to them, it messes them up. More than that, we teach them the wrong things: We tell them: “Don’t trust strangers!” which easily turns into “Don’t trust strangers with a different colored skin”. The truth is that most hurt and injury, physical and psychological, comes from people we trust. I was mostly hurt by those who love me, not by strangers. All this mind-based fear makes you not trust your gut. Through 5Rhythms, you learn to trust your gut again, to trust your body. There is no leader, no authority. All you can do is to listen to your own body and start building a container of trust. Eventually, there will be more of that trust than of the history of trauma and pain. Of course, the past is always there…but the container of trust grows stronger.”
What stood out for me the first time I danced with you was the quality of the space that you held. It was the safest space I had ever experienced together with such a large group of strangers. You also showed me the difference between facilitating a space with an agenda and facilitating a space of permissions…permission for each dancer to learn their own inner truths.
““Safe space”, it is an interesting phrase. Very popular. I think it is important to keep the edge as well. Gabrielle was never safe. She was not a “nice” lady. She had a bit of a witchy energy. She had a lot of kindness and compassion too, but she would challenge the Ego. Her sword for the Ego was very sharp. When she cut off the Ego’s head it was painless for the soul.
The whole teaching of 5Rhythms is about change, of unsticking oneself. Ego does not want change. I loved how Gabrielle would play with Ego-characters. It could be very funny. She was not shaming the characters; she was playing with all of them. Shaming the character or shaming the Ego is not going to bring any healing – that is the spirit of the practice, right? The spirit is that unconditional love.”
What is guiding you as a teacher when you are looking at us dancers on the dance floor?
“When I started teaching, I was looking for what was missing, what was not moving, what was stuck. Now I trust that I will see what I need to see and that I will know how to use that information. What is fascinating to me is that that way of seeing is not coming from the thinking part of my brain. I learnt to see with the heart, and so I see more clearly.”
Tell me about the Balkans wars and what impact it had on you? In Yugoslavia, people lived together, were married to each other. During the war, you could be killed based on your last name. The “othering” was extreme.
“I was not raised as Croatian. I did not know the difference between Catholic, Muslim, or Orthodox. I was Yugoslavian. For me, it made no sense. I did not feel like I had any enemies. I had no idea of what the Croatian flag looked like. My best friend came from a very Catholic family. Her mom told her she could not be friends with me because I was anti-war. So, you see even Croatians hated each other, based on their world view or ideology. It does not stay only at a level of nationality. The Warrior-part in me wants to fight this bullshit, these power structures and allegiances because of politics, skin color, age, gender, or religion. The way Gabrielle taught this was “united in our uniqueness”. All these human aspects make us unique, but this uniqueness is not dividing; it’s creative within our unity.”
The 5Rhythms Tribe holds many cultures, religions, and nationalities – some of which are at war or in conflict with each other at this very moment.
“Yes, often, maybe even most of the time, when you are in conflict – this is also true in marriage or friendships – you stop talking to one another. I believe that the strength of this tribe is that we meet first on the dance floor. As the dancer disappears, all the stories of the dancer disappear. Dancers meet deeply on a level beyond politics, religion or nationality. There are many times when I would see people who were in conflict dancing together and finding a way to reconnect through the non-verbal. I believe that we can speak with the passion of anger and not be against each other, not fighting each other.
We cannot think our way out of war. For now, our weapons are only getting bigger. We need to think about things from a different perspective. We need to develop the way we communicate, the ways in which we deal with our emotions of jealousy, rage, and fear. A lot of energy goes into fear. Particularly the fear of what would happen if someone attacked us. How much money is put into that fear, instead of hospitals, education and art? How much of your own human energy is going into that fear? How much of my energy do I invest in my education, my art, and in my dancing?”
Gabrielle Roth spoke about how we are living in increasingly turbulent times, is that something you recognize?
“Yes, Gabrielle spoke about Chaos… She said that in the beginning of time there was matriarchy. And, there were respected, devoted feminine principles, Flowing. Then the whole world went into Staccato – everything was clear – male/female, heterosexual/homosexual…then Chaos started. Chaos has a quality of the unknown, the unpredictable, and the uncomfortable, which we can see in terms of gender, who is a man/woman, who has sex with whom? Today we see the beauty of the mix, beautiful children being born into families of many cultures and traditions. The physical beauty of a child born to black and Asian parents. Every child comes from the chaotic mix of two energies who are totally different. But Staccato is not happy about this Chaos and takes it to the other extreme.
Staccato in its shadow form demands that we choose one side. This or that. Like we choose sides in a war. It can turn Chaos, which is deeply creative, into its opposite – into destruction. I feel that artists, these beautiful souls who dedicate their life to art, that is how they fight – with creativity. They are trying to balance destruction with creativity. And, so do I. When I create a workshop, I create a group, a feeling, a dance. That is my art.”
Anneli Rådestad
5Rhythms dancer and journalist
November 2023
1st photo by Inia Herenčić
2nd photo by Jaša Jarec