Kalani Oceanside Retreat Center

On Sunday mornings at Kalani, a yoga warm-up gives way to an opening circle, then two and a half hours of Ecstatic Dance, then a closing circle. The center, set in the coastal lowland forest of Keʻekeʻe on Hawaiʻi Island's Puna coast, calls itself the birthplace of the practice and the template for the weekly community dances now held around the world.

Kalani began in 1975, when Earnest Morgan and his partner Richard established Kalani Honua, Inc., meaning Heaven on Earth, as a nonprofit educational retreat center. In 2001, Five Rhythms, conscious dance and live electronic music coalesced there into modern Ecstatic Dance. This year, on November 13 to 15, Kalani marks 25 years of the practice with a weekend honoring the facilitators, musicians, visionaries and dancers who shaped it.

The land has its own long record. Lava from Kīlauea covered most of it between about 1250 and 1600, and archaeological studies show platforms, enclosures and terraces left by communities who once farmed, lived, taught, buried their dead and held ceremony here. When the 2018 eruptions led to the evacuation of lower Puna, the center closed. The lava did not reach it, but the closure held. In July 2019 the doors began to reopen under a new nonprofit board, and the center took the name Kalanimua, Divine Progress, though most still say Kalani.

Today guests stay in ocean view cottages across roughly forty acres of forest, book massage and healing work with licensed therapists in the Wellness Studio, and drop in on weekly classes. Hawaiian language and hula are taught by Kumu Leialoha Ilae-Kaleimamahu, who comes from the Hālau o Kekuhi hula lineage. Hale Aloha serves as front desk and small shop, with an Open Mic Night every other Tuesday. A Service Learning Program lets people join the intentional community for up to three months.