Dohee Lee: A Modern Day Performance Shaman

Dohee Lee

A composer and virtuoso performer trained at the master level in dance, drumming, singing, and shamanic music, Dohee Lee is forging a new performance form rooted in ancient Korean shamanic practices. Using the artistic tools of immersive post-modern multimedia performance - choreography, interactive electronic sound and installation and instrument design, elaborate costumes, live video manipulation and animation - she recognizes the medicinal power of personal stories and myth and makes rituals in the service of healing individuals and communities. Collaborating and improvising with musicians, spoken word and visual artists and working in site-specific and intricately designed performance spaces, Lee examines cultural memory, trauma, war, nature, human transformation, spiritual practice embedded in daily life. She creates rituals that change our perception of what performance can be.

Jaguar Medicine

Jaguar represents shamanic power, magic, shapeshifting, transformation, and the life-and-death principle. She embodies the wisdom of the underworld, the primal space of the unconscious deep within each of us. Jaguar's lesson is to move beyond your fear of the dark unknown. Jaguar is the epitome of a chaotic storm moving through your life, all the while demanding you to remain calm, centered, and grounded. This fierce animal is the gatekeeper to the unknowable. Jaguar medicine includes comprehending the patterns of chaos, walking without fear in the darkness, moving in unknown places, soul work, and reclaiming power. Invoke Jaguar to reclaim your true power. Click here to view my video "Jaguar Rising."

Mourning Dove Medicine

Photo by Dawn Huczek

Mourning Dove is maternal, gentle, serene, and embodies peace, love, and harmony. She is linked with dawn and dusk when the veil between the seen and unseen worlds is at its thinnest. Dove can help us connect with the spirit world at these times. The Mourning Dove's song speaks to our heart and stirs our emotions. Its mournful "coo" soothes our soul and calms our troubled thoughts, allowing us to find renewal in the silence of mind. Dove teaches us that, regardless of external circumstances, peace is always within us. We need only still the mind and go within. Click here to listen to my song "Mourning Dove Dawn" on SoundCloud.

The Way of the Shaman Documentary

Michael Harner

Michael Harner blazed the trail for the worldwide revival of shamanism and shamanic drumming with his 1980 seminal classic The Way of the Shaman (over 600,000 sold). Founder of The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Michael Harner is widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on experiential and practical shamanism, and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds. This documentary movie takes us through Michael's early expeditions as a young anthropologist in the jungles of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon and his life-altering insights into shamanic power. The film is an informative and inspiring look at the people behind the evolution of this groundbreaking spiritual healing methodology that honors and builds upon the ancient knowledge of the world's shamans. Movie available free online: https://vimeo.com/220889134