Recently I completed a residency at Heritage Academy, a Jewish day school in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. I first came to work only with the Judaic staff on bringing movement into their curriculum. I ended up not only working with the staff, but also with the middle school students finding ways to embody (and thereby enhance and re-member) their tefillah, or prayer.
Teachers: Jeanne Powers, Biology Teacher at PVPACHS, and Jodi Falk, Dance Director at PVPACHS
There are wonderful resources from Rabbis and other learned people in the Jewish tradition that speak to spirituality of the body (Nachman, Finkel, Michaelson) and the holiness of movement (Michaelson, Bloomfield, Nachman and students).
For me, dance is a pathway, a method, not unlike Buddhist meditation or other spiritual practices, for knowing oneself, the world, the connection between the two, and the … ineffable.
Dance and “Dis”Ability: moments from working with CandoCo Dance Company in the UK and Remix Dance Theatre in South Africa
Jodi’s newest article, “Yoga and Ethics in High School”, was published in Journal of Dance Education, and her work with teens on yoga and ethics was featured in YOGAJOURNAL.