Body Songs is playful delight
Hello fellow human. Welcome!
May we all grow in our capacity to be kind with one another, with ourselves, with all beings.
I am a lover of movement, Earth, and arts, a movement artist, image crafter, embodied storyteller, somatic and arts therapist, mentor, and teacher.
I’ve been teaching and leading groups professionally since 1995, and have been teaching movement and somatic inquiries for the past 26 years.
Body Songs is a melding of my travels throughs somatics, dance-movement, the arts, and psychology. Roots of this practice ripple from Soul Motion, Authentic Movement, Movement-Based Expressive Arts, Mindfulness-based Somatic Psychology and Somatic Inquiry. Body Songs is deeply informed by Indigenous, Nordic, and Celtic Earth Wisdoms, Taoism, Radical Dharma, Eco-Feminist Social Justice Praxis, Nordic Shamanism, and Gaia herself.
I’m a graduate of the first Soul Motion Teacher Training cohort (2007-2009) in California, trained by Soul Motion founder Vincent Martinez Grieco, with Zuza Engler. I have been teaching Soul Motion classes and workshops since 2008.
I worked closely with Vincent for 10 years in a post-graduate apprenticeship, assisting workshops and trainings while deepening as a teacher. I was fortunate to live in Northern California for many years - a hub of much Soul Motion practice - where I continued to assist and train with Vincent and Zuza, and attended regular classes with many colleagues.
Together Aletia Anna Alvarez and I developed the Soul Motion Embodied Leadership Program and mentorship program for the early Soul Motion School - a year long personal embodiment training -which we stewarded for several years, and that is still a first step within Soul Motion teacher trainings today.
I have held Soul Motion classes at Esalen, and Kripalu, and Madrona Mind Body Institute, as well as in Folsom, Sacramento, Sebastopol, Point Richmond, Nevada City, Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA; New York; Totnes, (England); Salt Spring Island, and now Victoria.
In addition to my practice as a Soul Motion teacher, I run a clinical psychotherapy practice specializing in working with folks of all ages healing the impact of trauma and attachment injuries, while offering international mentorship and training for other therapists (Learn more about this practice here).
A Somatic & Expressive Arts Psychotherapist for the past 26 years, I weave the wisdom of somatic psychology and care for nervous systems, skillful trauma informed practice, into my movement facilitation.
I support new and experienced movers to find playful relational ease and inspiration in their dance.
I support folks who are afraid of dance and community, but long to dance in community, to feel safer to rest into movement together.
I’ve been dancing since I was very little, and have been immersed in Dance Studies for 47 years, including: Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Salsa, Brazillian Rhythms, African, Yoga, 5 Rhythms, Argentine Tango, Soul Motion, Authentic Movement, Movement Based Expressive Arts, Dance Movement Therapy, Mammals Moving, Body Mind Centering, Contemporary Improvisation, and, most recently, Feldenkrais.
Training Lineage
Certified Soul Motion Improvisational Movement Teacher, trained 2007-2009, trained in the very first training cohort of Soul Motion Teachers
CoCreater of the original Soul Motion Embodied Leadership Program, with Aletia Anna Alvarez
Founder of the Turtle Island School of Soul Motion and Relational Ecology
Registered Yoga Teacher (200hr)
2 year 5 Rhythms Process Group - Libido - Creativity and Sexuality - with Andrea Juhan, in Germany and Italy
Movement Based Expressive Arts Training at the Tamalpa Institute, Northern California, with Anna and Daria Halprin
Dance Movement Therapy Training at the Center for Movement Education and Research (CMER), Northern California
Bartenieff Fundamentals and Laban Movement Analysis with Peggy Hackney
Authentic Movement Studies within Dance Movement Therapy Training with CMER
Authentic Movement Studies with Andrea Olsen, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, and Jen Polins at the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought in North Hampton, MA.
Developmental Movement, Body Mind Centering, with the Moving On Center, Northern California
Embodied Touch with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Body Mind Centering
Body and Earth Studies, Resources in Movement Studies with Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose
Moving from the Inside Out, with Margie Gillis
Feldenkrais Professional Training (in process)
Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist, Approved Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Consultant, Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Trainer
Hakomi Method, Professional Training with Jon Eisman
Registered Canadian Art Therapist
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California
Registered Couple and Family Therapist in Canada
Registered Clinical Counselor in BC
Mentored by Elders Fyre Jean Graveline and Jean Tait, learning about healing arts and ceremonies from an Indigenous Feminist perspective, through Life As Medicine.
Studies at the Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts Therapy Institute, participating in the Indigenous cohort as a treaty-relative ally
Nordic Shaman Lineage Studies, 2 year training program, with Chris Lüttichau of Northern Drum in Cornwall (in process)
David Abrams Sensory Earth Relations Program
Joanna Macy Work that Reconnects Courses
Playback Theater Trainings with Jo Salis and Jonathan Fox
Theater of the Oppressed, Forum Theater Trainings with David Diamond of Headlines Theater
Theater Sports Training with Bay Area Theater Sports
Vocal River Improvisational Singing with Rhiannon
Soul Singing studies with Sorah Nutting, of MaMuse
Vocal - Classical and Contemporary - Training at the Victoria Conservatory of Music
Relational Ecology is a name I’ve created for the central thread running through my work.
Body Songs practice evokes creative supple responsiveness - in our body experience, nervous system states, daily life expression, in our relations and sense of kinship, and in our dances with the collective challenges of our times.
Movement and play are fundamental to life and caring well for life force. When we are stressed we often contract and become still and braced against gravity. Movement play helps us find our supple flow again. Improvisation supports us well to develop creative present moment responses to life.
Body Songs is informed by Land - by Earth and Sky, by rivers and ferns, Gary Oak, Elder Cedar, Douglas Fir, and dangling moss, at the edge of the Salish Sea. This Land of Salmon, Herring, Eagle, Raven, Bear, Cougar, Wolf, Hummingbird, Orca, and Humpback. Land is a teacher. This Land holds memory of great suffering and also of great dignity and powerfully connective ceremony.
I live with my partner of 20 years and our 16 year old twins, in Victoria, BC, in the Ancestral, unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən People, known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations.
Deep respect and solidarity to the Ancestors, Elders, community and descendants of the lək̓ʷəŋən People.
I practice an abiding commitment to cultural transformation through Earth-based, creative social justice practice. I am deeply invested in learning together about healing the wounds of history towards relations of kindness, integrity, reciprocity, equity, respect, and warmth.