Erica has a beautiful gentle way of drawing you into the world of dance and deepening the connection with one's own body and a circle of other amazing women.

— Michelle Tocher

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About DOWH

Dancing in High Park 

Heryka

Dance Our Way Home™ (DOWH) is a holistic dance practice offering you:

  • a safe & non-judgmental space to be yourself, just as you are.
  • themes/invitations to inspire your courageous, compassionate and creative self.
  • guided visualizations to ground and relax you open to a more embodied awareness.
  • a perfect balance of facilitated and non-facilitated dance.
  • personal dances to invoke curiosity in self, to fall in love with your own knowing and impulses.
  • partner and group dances to connect, play, and feel part of a precious circle of women.
  • a wide range of music to carry you through various states of being, from tender to wild.
  • tools and woman-centered teachings to support the realization of your magnificence.
  • unconditional love and support from like-minded women as you travel your own life path.
  • a community-based practice for women in need.


The History of Dance Our Way Home:

 

DOWH was co-created in 2001 by Erica Ross and Nan Keyser for Sheena’s Place, a support organization for people with disordered eating and body image issues in Toronto, Canada. For ten years it remained a core ‘body image’ group at Sheena’s.

 

Over the years Erica, DOWH's director and visionary, continued to hone and deepen the DOWH practice, becoming Erica’s soul work and unique gift to her sisters.  Erica infused the practice of DOWH with her personal relationship to life and the lens through which she sees it, and her love for, and relationship with, the Divine Feminine and Earth-based spirituality, and the wisdom teachings of Buddhism and Shamanism, and life-affirming ideas, writings, concepts and teachings.  

 

In the fall of 2007, Erica, recognizing the great success at Sheena’s and the potential of this practice, brought DOWH into the community-at-large, offering it to any woman wishing to dance and to be more deeply connected to herself and to others.

 

DOWH continued to blossom as a beautiful tapestry of dance, guided imagery, relaxation, art, inspirational quotes and stories, supported by a diverse range of music including sacred voices, global funk, ambient and tribal grooves; offering women a remarkable journey of self-discovery, expression and connection, touching body, heart, mind and soul.

 

In 2009, DOWH attracted new women into its fold, as Twyla Kowalenko and Mari Rossi became the organisation’s first two apprentices and new DOWH facilitators. The growing team allowed for the creation of its very first DOWH Immersion: Facilitator Certification and Wisdom Path Training, which was held in the fall of 2010.  The first training program successfully graduated 10 new DOWH facilitators. 

 

2010 was a year of much outward growth for DOWH as it was also the year that Twyla Kowalenko initiated the Community Outreach Programme and took on the role of its director. With this new focus on communities of women who would not normally be able to access a practice such as Dance Our Way Home, in 2011, the organisation took up a new residence at the Centre for Social Innovation and welcomed its first Intern, Robin Linton.

 

In 2011, our beautiful tribe of DOWH facilitators expanded again with 10 more women certifying as DOWH Facilitators, in the second round of the DOWH Immersion: Facilitator Certification and Wisdom Path Training. Through the birth of these facilitators, DOWH has been shared in communities across Canada, down into United States and Peru. This fall 2012, DOWH welcomed 7 more courageous and kind women into the third round of training which completed on Dec. 12.  

 

Like an ever-developing spiral dance, the practice and the organisation continue to grow, move and respond to the community of women it touches.

 

 

Serena and Kerry
Dresses by Yes World Boutique, belts by Erica

 

 

Throughout its journey, the following 10 Principles continue to hold its core:

  1. Body is our teacher: We live in and through our bodies. It is here where we contain and reveal our entire life experience. This is where we must listen, learn and heal.
  2. Dance heals and ‘wholes’ us: Our body's primary language is movement. Through the dance we find all parts of ourselves so we can be whole.
  3. Loving kindness creates safe space: Through loving kindness we soften our body, heart and mind to find a meeting place of non-judgment, acceptance and peace. There we can feel safe to just be.
  4. Self expression and self worth are birth rights: We are all precious and unique. It is our right to find and love who we are, and express our personal truth authentically.
  5. Acceptance of self is the way to joy and freedom: When we accept all that we were, are and will be, in a place of no judgment, no right or wrong, good or bad, this is liberation and joy.
  6. Embracing the Divine Feminine Within creates balance and deeper knowing: It is time for us to remember and reclaim our original power and instincts as women. We have our own unique way. We just need to listen and respond with dignity and love.
  7. Radiance is our original state of being: We all were born with a spark of spirit, of life. This spark is called radiance, light, love, beauty. It is our task to shine!
  8. Letting go and relaxing are keys to magic-making: When we are in a state of peace and relaxation, a shift of consciousness happens called magic!
  9. We are all sacred and interconnected with the great whole: We are part of this great community called humanity, life, universe. We all contain the seed of divine energy that unites us all.
  10. Possibilities are limitless, miracles do happen: Anything is possible under the sun. Why not open ourselves to endless possibilities?

Click here for more information or to enrol in a DOWH session or workshop.