Tamara Turner - Trance Dancing

Tamara describes her time in North Africa studying music and dance, and how her experiences there led to a profound personal transformation. She told her story at the Raven Narratives events in late February and early March 2025 when the theme was “trees - rocks - birds”. Tamara is a Colorado-born mountain lover and music anthropologist, and the world's leading expert in an Algerian ritual healing tradition that nobody has ever heard of. From the melodramatic age of five, she was determined to become "a famous composer" which, indeed, materialized into advanced degrees in music composition and writing music for modern dance and film in her twenties. Fed up with studying dead, European White guys (i.e. Beethoven and the like), her rhythmic curiosity led her to study music in West and North Africa where she has spent more than 20 years conducting extensive musical and anthropological fieldwork on both sides of the Sahara Desert with Sufi communities (a branch of transcendental Islam). Now a senior researcher in mental health and healing across cultures (still a part-time musician), she has held academic posts in the US, UK, Germany, and Algeria and has published widely on musically-induced trance phenomena. Join us for two Raven Narratives SLAM storytelling events when the theme will be “mistakes” on Friday, June 20th, at the Fenceline Cider in Mancos, and on Saturday, June 21st, at the Ska Brewing in Durango. Storytelling SLAM events feature stories told by audience members, so bring your “mistakes” story and you might get a chance to share it on the stage! Follow us on Instagram and on Facebook for the latest information on ticket sales and more.