‘ I have found that dancing outdoors creates community and builds bridges to the wider world around us. Dance is an ideal modality for working in this way: there is a unity to be found in bodies moving in unison in the beat that meets that human need for connection, collaboration, co creation.

Lots of our dancers are city dwellers- living in places where being “shut down” in the streets with headsets in is often the norm to maintain the status quo. Much of the public rides transport systems such as the tube with earbuds in to cut out sounds around them, to remain untouched and aloft.

I’m curious about how we can turn this around and how headset technology can be used to build bridges. Session are facilitated with music and verbal instruction delivered through the headsets to encourage embodiment.

When we journey out of the city to dance together something marvellous happens, almost like magic…. During the sessions I watch people coming into their embodiment, enjoying themselves, coming alive, really starting to see each other and build bridges of connection.

I offer regular classes and teaching internationally at events and gatherings such as OneDanceTribe and Buddhafield Festival.

I have also received funding from Arts Council England and 5 Rhythms Reach Out to deliver intensive projects working in this way including a 3 month long dance based “rites of passage” programme: here I worked intensively with groups of young women to run a contemporary rite of passage to mark their transition into adulthood. Somatic awareness skills gained through dance are invaluable source of awareness as we transition into adulthood. Young people are presented with what can feel a pantheon of choices as the direction that they want to take going forwards. To develop the ability to listen to our internal somatic signals is paramount in making health decisions about intimacy and in cultivating good choices in relation to relationship, substances, life situations and the myriad of other options that emerge. The dance also teaches us how to manage our own physiological arousal, this somatic self awareness is invaluable in developing emotional intelligence.

The dancefloor is a place with permission- to be luscious, large, livid, vivid, vulnerable, voluptuous, direct, delicious, heartful, holy, hurting, healed and happy- or whatever else is moving through. It's a space to feel free, to see what is so, to shake it out, to settle into what is, to sweat it out and to soak up the sweetness of the sensate.

As well as being trained to teach the 5 Rhythms I'm also an artist, art therapist, accomplished dance producer, costumier and ceremonialist. I'm passionate about creativity for transformation and inspiration and as a way to connect with self and something greater than ourselves. My practice continues to be explore how can we use technology to wake us up to the fact that we are indeed connected to the wider world so we can build caring communities and foster connection.

I’m passionate about being explicit about how our somatic learnings translate back into real life, how we can apply what we have learned in the dance and take that growth off the dance floor -and bring it back into our day to day lives for personal and social change.

For more info on my passion for working in this way please see the writings section."