ABSTRACT
The Planetary Dance, a global participatory dance ritual, grew out of Circle the Earth and developed alongside it from 1987 onwards. The Planetary Dance continues to be performed, in spring each year, by communities and groups across the globe. The use of the RSVP Cycles has been an essential tool in the collective creative process of the mountain performances, Circle the Earth and The Planetary Dance. While the aspects summarized above have tended to support the continuity and growth of each dance over time and across distance, this has been made possible through the use of a form that, like a flexible skin, can both contain and respond to the shifting internal elements. In Dancing with Life on the Line, Anna Halprin used the process of the Five Stages of Healing in conjunction with the RSVP Cycles. The RSVP Cycles provided a framework for generating collective creativity and a common language with which to communicate.
