My body has lead me to teachers, rhythms, techniques, abandon, containment, ecstasy, erotic languid prayers, rituals, geometry, discipline, storytelling, and healing.  Through these journeys I have found spirit guides, competition, self criticism, deep reverence, the practice of life in uncomfortable and pleasurable tempos. 

I entered circles of elders including the choreographer and anthropologist, Ms. Katherine Dunham, and circles of tradition with Marie Basse Wiles dancing and drumming in Dakar, Senegal.  I trained at institutions including the Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts, Tisch School of the Arts, and the Alvin Ailey School.  I found kinfolk among those of us who focus our life on the powerful, rarely adequately funded art of knowing ourselves intimately in time, space, spirit, as co-creators with the universe, temples of consciousness.

I entered my temple as a professional with the Joffrey Balley, Tania Isaac, Wanjiru Kamuya, Urban Bush Women, and Refractions Dance Collective.  I entered my temple tossing toilet paper as mighty mouse at the age of two with my first dance teacher, Donna Peckit, in my birth place of Madison, Wisconsin.  I have felt the residue of rehearsed movements build up over time, changing my currents of emotions and thought patterns.  I remodeled my temple with the dynamic strength of pilates, under the teaching of Ms Kathy Grant, and the certification process of the Kane School of Core Integration.  I have studied and drawn the architecture and ranges of motion in my temple with Peggy Gould at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY where I earned my B.A. 

I have gone divinely mad with creativity and playmates including Sara Pearson, Patrik Widgrig, and Dan Hurlin.  I entered my temple wanting to join the choreographers that so deeply inspire me, David Dorfman, Ron Brown, Arianna Al-Tiye.  I found deep and subtle healing of my temple in Sufi Meditation with Dunya, and have shared this most recently with the Rebuilding to Reconnect project in New Orleans eighteen months post Katrina.  I joined a multi-generational community building process with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.  I recently discovered the great relief of truth shared in the People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond, an undoing racism organization, truth I want to rinse through my temple.   I know the impact of what passes through here, and I have learned to be more conscious of inviting healing (Yah shafi.)

I now give pregnant women tours of their own temples with Yoga for Birth.  I lead embodied Shakti Rituals to adorn and celebrate the architecture of our temples.  I support women in extending heart invitations to enter our temples.  I have become undeniably familiar with the necessity for undoing racism and undoing sexism in order for us to live fully and to know fully the spirit of our temples, our roles in history and our roles in the universe.  I have always known my dharma would be whispered to me as I kept dancing in here. 

My work, my fullest expression of truth, is to organize classes, dances, audiences, communities and rituals with two intentions.  The first intention is to undo racism as a white woman by acknowledging privilege and healing internalized superiority in myself and in the white community.  My second intention is to amplify women’s power from inside, to honor the fluidity of sexuality and spirituality, to stand in awe of our ability to bring new life into the world, and of our ability to sustain it with deep compassion in our growing families. 

This is my greatest gift.

Here.

Love,

Zahava