Dance Movement Healing as Creative Transformation in Community: 

As a result of the empowerment that dance provided me on my personal healing path, I became passionate to learn more about the healing qualities of dance, and in 1997, engaged in a course of study at University of Hawaii to learn about cross cultural shamanic movement and meditative healing rituals. I was especially inspired by the dance rituals connected with nature from the Huna and Kahiko traditions in indigenous Hawaiian culture, in the indigenous Coast Salish dance/theater ritual of Spirit Dancing, and in the ritual initiations of Black Elk (Oglala Sioux) and Malidoma Patrice Some (Burkina Faso). 
 

In 1998 I began a masters course of study in Dance Movement Therapy at MCP Hahnemann University in Philadelphia researching transformational healing movement processes from a clinical psychological perspective for adolescents and their communities. In my studies I encountered Candice Pert and later Bruce Lipton, researchers into the neuro-biologic connection between the emotions and the body - and found much scientific support for the use of creative arts in ritual ways to create healing and empowerment in mind and body. During my masters training, I learned how to use movement and dance to facilitate healing, self expression, catharsis and empowerment with adults, elders, children and teens across a wide spectrum of class, race, and culture.
 

In 2002, I began a course of study that would eventually lead me to certification in 2005 as a movement healer in a form of shamanic energy work using dance and movement developed by Iana Lahi called Spirit Gateways. I founded a non-profit in 2003, called Moving Creations Inc. that was born from my masters thesis research into how therapeutic creativity can facilitate adolescent identity repair. The mission of Moving Creations Inc. was to provide creative transformational dance/theater empowerment workshops with teens to support teen leadership and civic engagement in their communities. I ran our signature program, Girls on the Move, from 2003-2013 with a team of multicultural creative artists, providing small groups of hundred of girls intensive, life-changing experiences in expressive creativity development and leadership through performance creation (see photos below and website: www.movingcreationsinc.org). In 2012 I became trained as a meditation and yoga teacher in the schools through the YES (Youth Empowerment Service) for Schools program, and integrate this training into all that I do.