water

A holistic approach to dance, ritual, and the body, based around the science and mythology of water.

Welcome to ‘Water’, a new offering for this dance season, held at The Abbey Studio in Cumberland. I invite you to join in this integrate approach too dance performance drawing from the vault of practices I have been studying for the last fifteen years with the aim to culminate a deeper understanding of the many lenses of the body. Magnolia movement arts, our fusion dance style, is the foundation of our practice and we will be dancing every class. This beautiful flowing movement style draws from my many years of Odissi Indian classical dance training, Datura style bellydance, as well as influences form Persia and beyond. Exploring a range of methods we gain a deeper understanding of ways to interact with the body, including accessible asana, pranayama, guided meditation, methods for costume creation, and spoken presentations on water, mythology, yogic anatomy, and more. These long form classes will shift with the ebb and flow of the session, I will let you know ahead of time what each class will look like so you can prepare. We will be working on one or two choreographies as a part of a bigger performance project to be presented at Woodstove festival. The current of choreographies will guide us through a mix of more technical sequences, like we have presented in previous sessions, and simple free flow segments using large pieces of fabric as our symbolic representation of water. Expect to put aside around $100 for costuming. Regular at home practice is mandatory and small homework assignments will be given after some of the classes. This class is open to anyone with at least two years of ‘Bellydance’ experience or for those of you who have danced with me before. For those who are feeling called to a more casual technique focused dance class I will be offering Datura Style ‘Bellydance’ classes. You can find out more here.

In acknowledgement of the sources of inspiration for this course I would like to call in my teachers, some of whom I have been immersed with in long term in person study for years while others I have participated with in long and short term online courses. My teachers include first and foremost Colleena Shakti, Rachel Brice, Miriam Peretz, Teara Ashby, Josh Schrie, Tova Olsson, Halo Seronko, Olga Meos, and Yoga Vidya Gurukyl, as well a many other books, articles, myths and of course nature herself. 

My heart is flowing with gratitude for this life in all its expressions, from the depths of sorrow, to the rapids of ecstasy, and the calm waters of expanded awareness. Like the ebb and flow of the tides and the cycles of the moon we too are drawn by the rhythmic cycles of nature. By diving into the deep waters of myth, breath, dance, and beyond we consciously repattern the many layers of the body guiding us to a somatic understanding of the interconnectedness of existence.