Meet Maya Lemberg & Scott Houston of Sol Dance

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maya Lemberg & Scott Houston and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maya and Scott, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
It was never our intention to start a business. It was summer of 2020. Our dance community was suffering due to the Covid pandemic. We had no where to gather and no way to express and release through dance. After months of being idle, we had enough. We decided to do a one-off ecstatic dance in Candler Park (Atlanta) to honor the Summer Solstice. We brought 2 speakers and invited our friends – 75 of them showed up. We saw faces of deep relief and gratitude. – grateful to be able to dance together in the open-air; to process the intensity of the early pandemic days; and heal together through shared movement. We knew we had to keep going. And so we did – every 2 weeks for years! Gradually, we had to become a legitimate business. We are 5 years in and are still feeling the growing pains of becoming a legitimate business day after day, but have learned so much in the process!

We are more than a business. We are a community. We are a movement. We are here to propagate a more liberated, authentic and embodied humanity!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Atlanta has had an ongoing Conscious Dance community for well over a decade. During that time, Scott Houston had been facilitating 5Rhythms & DJing Ecstatic Dances on a weekly basis since 2014. All of that came to a pause at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020. As venues had to shut their doors, all community dances ceased. After 3 months, Scott Houston and his partner, Maya Lemberg decided to utilize Candler Park in ATL, GA for a one-off, safe outdoor dance in honor of the Summer Solstice in June of 2020. It was clear that the community was starving for a place to dance freely, together again, and thus, Sol Dance was born.

Since that Summer of 2020, Sol Dance has been consistently bringing together a large, diverse community of dancers several times a month – Ranging in age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and backgrounds of all kinds. Sol Dance has quickly become one of the most diverse and welcoming Ecstatic Dance communities in the world.

Our dances have anywhere from 200-400 people. We are a 100% substance free event, celebrate consent, presence and embodiment. This is a very unique experience for most people who have never seen diverse groups celebrate and process life through dance. Children run and play freely and grown-ups are able to finally let loose and feel free to be themselves. All without the help of alcohol or drugs. The culture sets the tone for opening up in this way.

At the beginning of each event, we offer the guidelines and set the parameters. This structure helps people feel safe and relaxed. They know that they can be however they want to be, move in whatever way feels natural and won’t be judged for it. It’s truly a welcoming space for everyone!

Each event begins with a facilitated warm-up and a guided meditation to help us connect to our bodies, our hearts and to the present moment. Each dance ends with a sound healing and closing circle. When sitting in a circle with several hundred beautiful humans, we begin to feel a deeper sense of connection to life and humanity. Our intention is to seed belonging into each participant so that they may heal, grow and thrive with the support of community.

Maya has a psychotherapy practice where she sees clients daily and helps them heal individually. While this is deeply important and powerful, so much of our wounding comes from relationship and community, thus must be healed within the context of community. Sol Dance is an avenue toward tribal remembrance.

We have now expanded into a membership model and are offering more ways to participate – monthly ecstatic dance, 5 Rhythms class, sound healings, movement labs, song circles, concerts and more.

Our greatest challenge is how to scale in order to support a growing community, while being in integrity with our grassroots origins. We have grown slow and steady and continue to evolve through the help of gracious collaborators, supportive technology, a whole lot of work and grounding into the truth of highest calling – For Sol Dance to be a vehicle of evolving humanity. With thousands of people having graced our dance floors and many lives transformed, I’d say we’re on track!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Arabia Mountain, JeJu Sauna, Downtown Roswell, Buford Hwy Crawl, Korean Karaoke, Shoot the hooch.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We give deep thanks to the 5 Rhythms, a movement practice started by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970’s that is both dance and meditation. Diving into this practice in 2012, Co-Founder Scott Houston found his true purpose. His journey in becoming a 5 Rhythms teacher was long, rigorous and incredibly deep. These teachings set the foundation for what we do at Sol Dance. This practice also set Scott on the path of DJing music, with the intention to catalyze movement. Now renowned for what he does, he gives the 5R dance practice credit for setting him on his path.

Website: https://Www.soldancemovement.com

Instagram: @soldancemovement

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sbhouston

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soldancemovement

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@soldancemovement

Other: www.emergehealing.com

This is co-founder Maya Lemberg’s psychotherapy practice. She uses her skills as a therapist in all of what she does with Sol Dance, creating trauma-informed spaces and events.

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