Dancing Rabbit is an ecovillage and intentional community set amid the hills and prairies of rural northeastern Missouri. Our goal is to live ecologically sustainable and socially rewarding lives, and to share the skills and ideas behind that lifestyle.
We’re excited to have new members join Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and are interested in individuals, families, or communities who want to live sustainably. Here, you can have the benefits of small-town life and intentional community living, in the company of other progressive individuals supporting each other in living an ecological life.
Although Dancing Rabbit strives for some level of self-sufficiency and economic independence, we do not sequester ourselves from mainstream America. Rather, outreach and education are integral to our goals. We vigorously promote ourselves as a viable example of sustainable living, and spread our ideas and discoveries through visitor programs, workshops, academic and other publications, speaking engagements, and the like.
Residents of Dancing Rabbit agree to follow ecological covenants and sustainability guidelines. We build our homes using alternative techniques such as straw bale and cob, and green building methods, powering them with renewable energy from the sun and wind. Vehicles at DR are owned cooperatively and powered by electricity and biodiesel. Overall, we eat an ever-increasing amount of local, organic, and in-season foods including many home-grown vegetables.
We strive to be good stewards of our land, with much of our acreage reserved as wildlife habitat. In the grasslands we are reintroducing native prairie plants to help revitalize our region’s biodiversity. We’ve planted over 10,000 trees in an effort to restore our land to its precolonial ecology, to stabilize the riparian zone, and to provide a sustainable source of wood for our community in years to come.
Membership & Visitors
- Current members: 55
- Open to new members
- Open to visitors
Dancing Rabbit isn’t just a place, it’s a lifestyle. Living here is also a process.
Usually, the first time folks come to DR they’re a visitor in the Sustainable Living Visitor Program, Ecovillage Experience Weekend or less frequently, a guest of someone who lives here. We highly recommend that interested potential members participate in a visitor program to answer the myriad of questions they might have and to enable them to interact with most Dancing Rabbit members.
If, after visiting, they decide they like it enough to try living here, they can apply for Residency. The residency period is designed to provide room for exploration, to find what fits and what doesn’t, if Dancing Rabbit is right for the resident, and vice versa.
When approved, the new resident then signs a residency agreement, which is a document outlining rules for behavior that could affect other people in the village, the project, or property. Residents may rent land, but may not build or hold warren leases – most tent or rent a room/space/house. Residents live here at Dancing Rabbit as members live: they are expected to participate in work rotations, utilize the vehicle cooperative instead of driving a personal vehicle, and are encouraged to serve on committees. The main difference between members and residents is that residents cannot block consensus on member decisions.
After six months of residency, residents become eligible for membership and can apply to be a member. Ideally, during the residency period, a person has taken the opportunity to get to know as many Dancing Rabbit members as possible; to work, play, and possibly even disagree and resolve conflict. The more realistic the residency experience, the easier the decision-making becomes.
