The Mevlevi Order, better known as the Whirling Dervishes, was founded by the Sufi mystic, Celaleddin Rumi, also called Mevlana. He believed that music and dance represented a means to induce an ecstatic state of universal love and offered a way to liberate the individual fromthe anxiety and pain of daily life.

The wide white skirt symbolizes the ego's shroud. The dervishes greet one another and salute the soul, which is "enslaved" by shapes and bodies. The dervishes extend their arms, to allow divine energy to enter the right palm, move through the body, and pass out through the left palm into the earth. The movement concludes with a bow, signifying the return to a state of subservience.