
THE STORY OF OKAN
"We do not dance to get into a trance we dance to get out of one"
African Proverb
While living for several years in Thailand deep in nature, Tabari explored numerous spiritual practices including various forms of conscious movement, satang, meditations, medicine ceremonies, and learning from mother nature herself. It was through a traumatic experience in his life that he felt the calling to work with the healing power of movement and sound. With limited resources, he learned from visiting teachers and studied how the elements were represented in various forms of tribal dance and with the support of good friends he created his first movement gathering called 'Dance of the 5 tribes' based on the inspiring work of Gabrielle Roth, Tabari combined the structure of 5 Rhythms with the Archetypes of the African Orishas (Deities) from the Yoruba tradition in honor of his ancestors.
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Throughout Tabari's Journey, he has been driven by a need to explore the 5 deeper interconnected relationships within the human experience. The relationship with the mind, body, spirit, community, and nature. While living in Brazil his experience of connecting with Shamans, Umbanda (Afro Brazilian religion), and Santo Daime further deepened his vision for working with movement. After some time of integrating his experiences and returning back to the UK Tabari created Ọkàn (meaning soul in Yoruba). Ọkàn Movement combined the lessons he is still continually learning from, conscious movement, trance states, visioning, and meditation into a journey of self-love and integration, the foundation for all connections.