Gen Z love ecstatic dance. Would I?

Two months ago I moved to London and found it a disorientating experience. Most of my friends were already settled when I got here, and I found myself overwhelmed, isolated and always on the wrong Circle line train. Everyone seemed to have their ‘thing’; something they belonged to. What was mine?

I tried a 5 a.m. run club. It was horrendous. I tried the East London conceptual art scene, but couldn’t keep a straight face. Then one Friday night I found myself in church, but not for a prayer service. This church was deconsecrated, converted and the activity that evening was something called ‘ecstatic dance’. Yet the setting was appropriate because, as I discovered, for wellness-obsessed millennials and Gen Zers, ecstatic dance is a sort of religion. It’s a place where my generation can feel they belong, and where the quest for transcendence is alive and grooving.