Gabrielle Roth

Roth was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2009 and died on October 22, 2012, aged 71. Roth's son, Jonathan Horan, is Director of The Moving Center, and Executive Director of Roth's International Institute, 5Rhythms Global.

The Moving Center teaches her work through her school in New York; it has certified over 400 5Rhythms teachers worldwide. She taught experimental theatre in New York based on her ecstatic dance approach, 5Rhythms. Roth was music director of the theatre company The Mirrors and has been a member of the Actors Studio. Roth directed theatre productions of Savage Love, by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin, at The Culture Project (Mercer Street, New York City). She founded The Moving Center School in 1977 in New York.

The 5Rhythms movement system, founded by Roth in the late 1970s, focuses on five body rhythms: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness and is "a way to become conscious through dance". The movement spread worldwide, with 245 registered teachers by 2012. In 2007, Roth founded the non-profit 5Rhythms Reach Out which offered classes in 5Rhythms to various groups, including those suffering from Alzheimer's disease, other dementias, and cancer. The Huffington Post described Roth as "an incredibly influential teacher of meditative dance". Charlotte Macleod, in the London Evening Standard, describes dancing Roth's 5Rhythms as a kind of antidote to life in a large city, and how she was attracted to a dance class by a video of Thom Yorke. The class leaves her "mentally and physically refreshed, and oddly connected to the other dancers." The dance was "a kind of moving meditation" for her. Christine Ottery, in The Guardian, states that "ecstatic dancing has an image problem" and "encompasses everything from large global movements such as 5 Rhythms and Biodanza to local drum'n'dance meet-ups". She suggests that readers may "find 5 Rhythms a good place to start", and does so herself: "Nervously, I stretch and warm my muscles. As the rhythms take off, I shake off my shyness." She dances in different ways, alone or with partners. "My body is expressing itself - it's utter abandonment and a complete high." The 5Rhythms have been the subject of academic study.

Roth described being inspired by the dance of Spanish gypsy La Chunga and by seeing the Nigerian National Ballet. She trained in traditional dance methods, suffering from anorexia during her teenage years. Roth paid for college education by teaching movement in rehabilitation centres. Following college she lived and worked in Europe for three years, during the mid 1960s. During this time she visited the concentration camps memorials in Germany that she had studied during college.

Gabrielle Roth (February 4, 1941 – October 22, 2012) was an American dancer and musician in the world music and trance dance genres, with a special interest in shamanism. She created the 5Rhythms approach to movement in the late 1970s; there are now hundreds of 5Rhythms teachers worldwide who use her approach in their work.