i’m building a living digital archive mapping traditional erotic dance forms from around the world - check out the prototype

THE PROJECT

Across cultures, people danced in circles, in pairs, in shared rhythm.

Traditional dance across cultures has historically carried social, spiritual, and relational meaning linked to fertility (life giving), devotion, courtship, celebration, and collective healing. Traditional dance was filled with energy and love ~ it held deep meaning and clear social functions. It strengthened communities, restored emotional health, marked rites of passage, regulated the nervous system, and transmitted lineage-based wisdom through rhythm, gesture, and story.

These are some of the oldest and most sophisticated human technologies for flourishing, yet these sacred forms have been moralized, miscategorized, marginalized, or even erased through colonial governance, religious reform, and globalization.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Modern life trains people across gender, race, and class to constrict, perform, and privilege mind over body. So we are left disconnected from our instincts, our bodies, our emotional intelligence. Or maybe we're just numb.

The cost is visible - strained relationships, chronic stress and anxiety, stalled creativity, sexual violence.

I began this project to remind us of our ancestral inheritance - this is the way we feel more like ourselves and churn more love, joy, and connection within our selves in our communities. Dance is not frivolous, it's our pathway back to our humanity and wellbeing.

THE RESIDENCY

I’ve been accepted into an archival arts residency in Spain focused on cultural memory and critical storytelling.

The residency is a chance for me to be in community with other artists and researchers to explore practices and methodologies to produce collective knowledge. This is where I build the skills to organize the archive with rigor and care so it can grow beyond a personal project.

THE GOAL = $3,000

This supports:

Spain residency travel + participation
Archive development
Pilot Bedroom Flow sessions
Collaborative design + media experiments

WHAT YOU RECEIVE

ALL DONORS RECEIVE ACCESS to three sessions of Bedroom Flow a witchy somatic ritualistic movement class livestreamed from my bedroom 🧘🏽‍♀️🛏️🌸🪔

$25
5-day erotic memory email series with reflections, prompts, and audio from the residency in Spain in August

$50
Bedroom Flow recordings post-event

$100
Private 30-minute somatic coaching session. Themes we might explore include embodiment, relationship to the erotic, reflections on ancestral movement traditions, yoga/tantra for daily life, etc.

$250+
Private tantric yoga session IRL + all the above

Thank you <3

When you support this work, you'll be subscribed to my Substack to receive updates on the project, essays, case studies, etc.

arohi bhatt is a diasporic feminist knowledge worker moving between digital and embodied worlds.

She is a yoga teacher, dancer, somatic facilitator, writer, and learning designer exploring how traditional movement forms carry memory, power, and cultural inheritance.

For the Love of Dance ~~

funding a living archive of ancestral erotic movement