I started dancing at the age of two when my mom would take me to ballet classes. I loved to dress up in tutus and perform in front of lots of people. I continued with performances for the neighbors and family members at holiday dinners. Throughout highschool, I studied theatre and art, and began my exploration of the soul.
In 1992 after graduating from high school, I attended Hartford Art School in Connecticut. I majored in Ceramics and made functional tea pots and other objects on the wheel. I explored form, function, space, earth, and movement. Using clay on the wheel was very meditative and grounding. In ceramics, you use all of the elements in nature; earth, water, fire, air and space. I was creating vessels to hold space or water or tea. It was the begining of my yoga practice. In Yoga, we do the same thing, except that our bodies are the vessels that hold the space or the water or the tea :). I enjoyed making art, especially objects that could be used in daily life. I was very interested in beautiful things that "worked", and I loved the discipline. I made pots for a couple of years after college while I also began to study bellydancing, yoga and rock-climbing.
In 1998, I attended The University of The Arts in Philadelephia, where I recieved a Graduate Degree in Art Education. It was two years of intense study and exploration. I was practicing yoga, runnning, dancing, teaching, and studying educational philosophy. I became turned on to such luminaries as Rudolph Steiner, Immanual Kant, and Maria Montessori. After graduation, I took a job teaching sculpture in a high school. I did this for a year. It was enjoyable, however, I realized that I was much more interested in learning more about yoga then I was about teaching sculpture.
In the sumer of 2001, after about 4 years of yoga practice, I made the decision to teach. After about two months, I was teaching 20 classes a week. It was the easiest decision that I have ever made. I was completely sure that I was going to be a yoga teacher, and that it would fufill all of my dreams.
In 2001, I completed 50 hours of teacher training in Ashtange Yoga with Beryl Bender Birch. I completed the 200 hour Jivamukti Yoga Teacher Training in 2003, and in that same year I completed a 100 hour training in Ayurveda . Along with these formal teacher trainings I have participated in many workshops, yoga classes, and retreats. For the past 4 years I have co-taught and co-directed the yoga teacher training program at Dhyana Yoga in Philadelphia.
I have a deep love affair with my own personal yoga practice, and I believe that we should all spend a little time everyday alone; breathing and moving and praying.
In 2001, I was asked to perform with the bellydance troupe, Philadelphia Tribal Bellydance. We performed at the Pennsylvania Rennaissance Faire and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. We made our own costumes and had a great time dancing together. In American Tribal Style Bellydance, the dancers all know the same dance vocabulary and physical and vocal cues, so that they can improv together during a performance. It has this incredible sensual and hipnotic quality.
After these first bellydance performances, I began to recieve requests to perform in all kinds of settings. I was performing in restaurants, bars, dance clubs, festivals, concert halls, weddings, birthday parties, and bridal showers. I had never consciously decided to become a bellydancer, it was just something that the Universe decided for me.
I have been so fortunate to have had so many opportunites to hone my craft as a performer. I didn't take many dance classes between 2001-2006. I was just performing all the time, and working with many dancers and musicians who taught me some very important skills. I was mostly performing on my own as an American Cabaret dancer. This style of bellydance is influenced by Egyptian Cabaret, Jazz, and other kinds of dance depending on the individual dancer. It tends to be very stylized and sometimes lyrical. The costumes are glitzy; with sequins, beads, fringe, and usually a bare belly.
Now that I am living in Santa Cruz I am studying with Palika. She teaches American Tribal Style Bellydance. It is much more muscular, and focused on correct alignment and posture. The costumes are influenced by tribal cultures from around the world, and the dancers usually wear chunky silver jewelery with bold make-up and hairstyles. It is usally performed in groups of women who all know the same dance vocabulary. They improv. together taking slight non-verbal cues from the lead dancers.
This is an amazing time to be both and bellydancer and a yogi, as both of these ancient and sacred arts are being explored by so many gifted poeple. The community of Tribal bellydancers in this country are taking the dance to new heights, and they are constantly improving the dance, and making it more accesable to women all over the globe.
Bellydance can be empowering for women in that it teaches us how to love our bodies for what they are. It doesn't ask us to be certain shape or size. I have been in bellydance classes with all kinds of women; young, old, big, small, and in walkers and wheel chairs. We come to dance class to let go of our ego; that part of us that thinks we are all separate. We dance together and we share in the expression of the sacred sound of the drum.
Bellydance gives us an intimate knowledge of our bodies, and teaches us how to control the deep internal muscles that are connected to our intestines,stomach, womb, heart, and lungs. It helps to develop our inner strength, both mental, and physical. My yoga teacher, Sharon Gannon, talks about how yoga teaches us to become Anarchists. We become "Rulers of the Self" or "Self Rulers". In both bellydance and yoga, we learn how to be completely in each moment without reacting to our thoughts, emotions, or external situations. We are there in the moment, completely open and free.
We practice putting oursleves in challenging situations in the controlled envirnometn of a bellydance or yoga class, and we practice breathing through it. We can even smile and laugh just to make sure that our soul knows that we are willing to fully experience that blissful state that is always there no matter what is going on around us.
Offerings
I have been blessed with so many incredible teachers and friends who have helped to illuminate the path of yoga. I am so thankful for all of the people who pretend to be my students so that I have the opportunity to teach, which of course is the best way to learn. I offer all of my efforts to these beings.
G.U.R.U.= Gee, You Are You!
Some of my beloved teachers:
Sharon Gannon and David Life, Geshe Michael Roach and Christie Mc Nally, Kofi Busia, Seane Corn, Beryl Bender Birch, Ed Zadlo, Palika, Valerie Rushmere, and Ansuya.
Go to the "links" page for links to thier websites