BIOGRAPHY
TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE:
I bring over thirty-five years of experience as an artist, dancer, yoga teacher, movement educator, and group facilitator to sessions. I hold an Masters Degree in Counseling from the California Institute of Integral Studies. I am a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT) and a Certified Practitioner of the somatic movement method Body-Mind Centering®. I hold a degree in Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute. I have studied many forms of dance and performance from early childhood. Since 1993 I have focused on forms of dance that include the integration of somatic movement practices with dance. I have studied many somatic approaches including Body-Mind Centering®, Rolfing, Feldenkrais, Contact Improvisation, Sensory Awareness, Ideokinesis, Authentic Movement, Hakomi and 5-Rhythms. I have taught dance improvisation, somatic movement and yoga classes throughout the Bay Area and internationally since 1990.
MEDITATION & YOGA:
Spiritual practice provides the bedrock of what I offer to others. My enduring commitment to a daily sitting meditation practice and a daily yoga practice began over 20 years ago. My yoga practice connects to lineage of Krishnamacharya and the teachings offered by BKS Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, and TKV Desikachar. My primary teachers have been Rodney Yee, Angela Farmer, Amy Cooper, and Sarah Powers. My meditation practice is based in Vipassana or Insight meditation practice. I have been significantly influenced by my teachers Howard Cohn and Gil Fronsdal, teachers of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
DANCE:
I began dancing as a very young child, a dedicated ballet dancer until the age of 21. I then discovered modern dance and ultimately found post-modern dance in the early 1990's in the form of Contact Improvisation which is a dance form grounded in somatic movement principals. Throughout my dance career I have collaborated with other dance artists, movement innovators, musicians and visual artists through participation in research projects, performances, festivals, conferences, workshops, and trainings in the U.S. and Internationally. I have taught dance in the U.S. as well as Internationally, including two years on faculty at the Rubin Academy for Music and Dance, Hebrew University, in Israel.
