This week’s Dance First Member Spotlight is brought to you by Movement Medicine facilitator and producer and Dance Your Prayers founder Carrie ‘Zaza’ Branovan!
Movement Medicine?
I’d never heard of it.
Since 2008, I had been exploring conscious dance practices in America. On a whim, while on a business trip to Dublin, I registered for a Saturday dance workshop called “Medicine Dance” offered by Faculty Member David Mooney. I still remember the date — July 23, 2017. It was my first experience with The School of Movement Medicine. An hour into the experience, I realized I had entered a new portal of wonder. It was coupled with a familiar “knowing,” like an exquisite tapestry woven of the Mystery Schools that I had
experienced and appreciated throughout my life. I felt like I had arrived home.
Profoundly moved, and supported by David, I took the step of applying to become an Apprentice to co-founders Ya’Acov & Susannah Darling Khan and was overjoyed to be accepted. By October 2017, I found myself in Devon, England, at “Initiation” – a pre-requisite for Apprentices.
Did I say I found myself? The truth is this: The person that first showed-up was a burnt-out Marketing Executive, carrying the weight of her past and family history, plenty of trauma, and waging battle with an exhausted body. Since then, thanks to practicing Movement Medicine, I have shed the heaviness of my spirit, mind, and body, which I had carried for decades.
Having benefited so intensely, I became inspired and passionate about sharing Movement Medicine in the United States and Canada. While the movement is popular in Europe, it is still mostly unknown in North America.
So, for 2020, after completing the Apprenticeship, I collaborated with Faculty Members in England and Ireland, as well as fellow co-organizers, to schedule a dozen weekend workshops across America and Canada. And then….well….need I remind anyone of the cancellation of many fine in-person experiences due to the pandemic?
Fortunately, it’s become clear that things begin to energetically shift when inviting Movement Medicine into one’s life. The right people show up, books open to the right page, music orchestrates to a perfect soundtrack, and new solutions are discovered.
Movement Medicine Faculty Members David Mooney, Jo Hardy, Yasia Leiserach, and Ben Yeger went to work translating the workshops they had planned for North America into online Zoom journeys. And it’s worked.
We offered the first online course as a “never been done before” one-off experiment….and here we all are…. evolved over 8 months and 8 courses. We’ve settled into a format of 6-week themed journeys, each offered to a maximum of 26 dancers, once a week for two hours.
I now know with certainty that I am not the only American feeling gratitude for the resources and connection that these continuing small group formats offer. The testimonials and repeat participants speak mountains. You are warmly welcomed to join us on one or both of these upcoming, newly designed, Movement Medicine journeys. I believe you will find them essential life support in these times.
“The entire experience was a magical journey led with such love and connection and held with embrace and support. David’s voice, sacred music, guidance, and beautiful prayers were medicine for my soul. I have had such a profound transformation in my relationship with myself in accepting who I am and why I am here. My body/soul is moving with more ease and grace through all my relationships with life, and I am immensely grateful. This course has been the support I needed to connect me to my spiritual roots and guide me across a threshold.”
“It takes a strong, evolved, spiritual leader to create a space where each person feels valued and inspired— and to do this virtually is seemingly impossible. This is the genius and clarity of Jo Hardy’s movement experience”.
DAVID MOONEY: Journey of the Heart: Arc of Time 2020 Wednesdays 10am-12pm CT
Nov 11-Dec 16
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
JO HARDY: The Art of Becoming
Sundays 10am-12pm CT
Nov 1- Dec 6
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
With immense love, hope and gratitude,
Carrie “Zaza” Branovan
808-283-3384 (Central Time)
carrie@danceyourprayers.dance
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