Embodying Creative Leadership

At this place in my life, I had been asking myself what it would take to bring me a sense of completion in this lifetime of dance and transformation at the cutting edge. What I want most of all is to share the principles I’ve developed and used in Growth in Motion in a way that nourishes and prepares the next generation of leaders with the strength, courage, and skills to move forward as inspired agents of change.

To this end, I developed an exciting apprentice training program:

Embodying Creative Leadership:
Enabling the Bigger Dance

and I engaged some extraordinarily talented and courageous students in the achievement of this dream.

I approached this teaching with daring and absolute faith in those who want to learn from me. My life experience has shown me that their deepest yearnings can be manifested and supported in a way that is in itself radical, as they join their colleagues in launching each others’ visions.

The course was presented in 4 Modules, each spanning one weekend.

By the end of all 4 modules, participants were be able to:

• Co-Create ceremonies to uplift and unify their community and to transform wounds into growth
• Observe transformation within themselves physically, emotionally, psychologically, and energetically as a comfortable, capable leader of their communities
• Understand and demonstrate the language and principles of movement and embodiment to ground their visions and dreams, and make actionable their intentions to help heal the world
• Develop and practice group facilitation skills as my apprentice in a class or community event

Within each module, students: 

• Learned principles of physical, emotional, and spiritual health derived from Laban Bartenieff Movement Analysis, Barbara Brennan Healing Science, Body-Mind Centering, and 60 years of sacred dance creation
• Experienced somatic approaches to leadership: body systems, body fundamentals, developmental movement, anatomy, exertion recuperation, intentionality and its movement vectors, space harmony, injury prevention, personal movement signatures
• Participated in individual and group explorations around self expression, interaction and action, and the creation of communities in motion
• Applied conflict resolution improvisational process
• Viewed and understood choreographies and rituals where I’ve incorporated these principles
• Developed their own leadership project incorporating aesthetic dance/movement and embodiment skills

The 4 modules were based on these themes:

Module 1: Universe and Nature – The Cosmos, Earth, and Animal Forces
Module 2: The Self – Personal Truths, Personal Traumas, Personal Healing
Module 3: Tribal Knowing – Our Responses to our Family, Ethnic and Cultural communities
Module 4: Global Community – Creating Embodied Experiences as a Global Healing Force

The first twelve to complete this training:

Front:  Anisha Singh, Irene Mirci
Middle: Susan Miller-Stigler, Shari Lauter, (Fanchon Shur), Mary Meyer, Claudia Lopez, Joy Lake
Back: Chandler Stevens, Quanita Munday, Alex Olmedo   (Not Pictured: Rebecca Henderson, Michelle Morano)

Photo by Amy Smethurst