Dance Our Way Home

Our Blossoming Community

Dance Our Way Home is a practice and a community.

Knowing this journey could not happen on its own, nor meant to be experienced alone, we are so very grateful for all the relationships which have been birthed, and all the generous, heart-felt support and guidance we have received along the way.

Big thanks go out to EVERY WOMAN who graces the sacred space of DOWH- past, present and future- including all the beautiful women who assist/ed DOWH in the studio, and who offered their beauty to the labyrinth photo shoot and/or promo video. 

More special thanks go to:

Kerry Ann Ingram, Gail Raynard , Catherine Morningstar and Laura Nashman for assisting in the DOWH booth at The Yoga Show & Convention, 2009.

Leslie Jennings and Catherine Raine for their beautiful poetry as well as their joyful presence. Read Leslie's poem "Essence" and Catherine's poem "Labyrinth Dancers". 

All the fabulous "Muses" of "Sundays with the Muse"- Zahra Haji, Gennie Brukner, Guiomar Campbell, Caro Cloutier, Nan Keyser, Val Moysey, Lang Liu, Michelle Tocher and Wende Bartley.

You are all a blessing to this vibrant expressive community!

Our Growing Team

 Erica Ross, Co-Creatrix, Director & Facilitator
Growing up in a home of dance and art, Erica Ross offers the wisdom of her life experience as a dancer, artist, group and workshop facilitator, certified hypnotherapist, life mentor, traveller and mother. She has been involved in the creative and healing arts for over 30 years. Read Erica's full bio.

 * Nan Keyser, M.Ed, OSP, Co-Creatrix, Facilitator
Nan is a psychotherapist in private practice who has been a compassionate facilitator of the healing and expressive arts for over 15 years. She is a clinical member of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists and has trained in body-centered modalities such as bioenergetics, sensorimotor psychotherapy, movement, chanting, and yoga. In her therapy practice, she has a caring, woman-centered approach to effectively help women create positive change with issues such as depression, anxiety, eating  disorders, body image, panic, blocked creativity, phobias, abuse, trauma, and relationship problems. Nan is co-founder of Dance Our Way Home and The Move Dance Collective. www.expressivehealing.com  nankeyser@gmail.com

 * Twyla Kowalenko, MSW, Community Outreach Director, Apprentice, Facilitator
When asked who she is, Twyla replies, without hesitation, “A Dancer.” And although she has always been a dancer, prior to her exploration with Dance Our Way Home, she would have chosen other descriptions first.  The impact DOWH has had on her own life, the desire to share the power of what she has discovered through the practice and her own dancing has led Twyla to initiate a DOWH Community Outreach program that aims to offer the embodied practice to as many women as possible. Twyla’s passion for this initiative is complemented by her background in social work, where she has had the opportunity to work with many groups of women in various parts of the globe as teacher and facilitator, counsellor, case manager, advocate, fundraiser, writer, editor, program developer and evaluator and researcher.  Twyla is excited to bring her many hats to her work with DOWH and is blessed to share her journey with a growing community of amazing women! twyla@danceourwayhome.com

 * Mari Rossi, Apprentice, Co-Creatrix of the DOWH Immersion

Three years ago serendipity brought Mari Rossi to Dance Our Way Home, and in this practice she found a way to deepen her healing journey. She had been dancing different modalities, including ballet, jazz, modern and expressive, since she was a child in Brazil.  Mari completed her training as a yoga teacher at The Yoga Sanctuary in Toronto and recently  studied at Baby and Me Fitness to become a certified Pre and Post-natal fitness and yoga instructor. She is now taking a break from her studies in psychology at the University of Toronto and from ISIS’s Expressive Art Therapy program, to raise her beautiful newborn daughter. Mari’s own journey through motherhood has inspired her to bring Dance Our Way Home to pregnant women and new moms. 

 * Alexandra Collas, B.Ed,  Nia White Belt, DOWH Immersion Photographer & Participant
Born in Lima, Peru, Alexandra's dancing way took her to Canada.  She found DOWH two years ago and has been moved to dance with Erica ever since. She is taking the DOWH Immersion for she knows her dancing path is intrinsically related to women's wellbeing and personal growth. She believes in creating sacred, all inclusive, healing dance spaces.  A dancer in many lives, an artist at heart, a singer from the womb, a poetess, drummer,  nature lover,  teacher and healer, Alexandra's art is a manifestation of  the magic of life and the beauty of being part of this wonderful journey. www.alexandracollas.com  www.nianow.com/me/1104

 * Caro Cloutier, B.A., dipl.EXAT, Past Facilitator
Caro is a practicing expressive arts therapist, energy medicine practitioner, and past Board Member of the Ontario Society of Psychotherapists. She invokes sacredness and healing experiences by engaging participants to rekindle their sense of play, creativity and self-expression.  Caro's expressive arts therapy is inspired by drama, visual art, movement, toning or sounding, storytelling, text, symbolism, mythic mapping and ceremony.  Caro offered a 6-Week DOWH Series, "Dreaming in the Dark", January 23- February 27, 2010.  www.carocloutier.com  caro@carocloutier.com 

 * Tabitha Kot, Writer, Website copy-editor  
Heeding the call from her distant tribe, Tabitha danced into the circle at Dance Our Way Home. At the centre of the spiral she found much needed succour, a sense of community, endless Love, and, ultimately, her Self.  A passionate student of life, Tabitha has had the great privilege to study Social Work, Sociology, Reiki, Feminist Theology, and, while in India, yoga and meditation.  Tabitha is now a Certified Yoga Teacher through Yoga Therapy Toronto and plans to bring the beauty of yoga, meditation, and breathwork out into the community.  Wherever there is rhythm and beat, Tabitha will follow the sound and she will dance. Follow her journey, as well as the journeys and wisdom of others, on her blog "Twisted Positions". Read Tabitha's article "Dance Our Way Home: The Divine Dance" and her poem "Awakening".  

 * Brenda Clews, Writer, Poet

Brenda Clews is a poet and painter living in Toronto, Canada. Born in Zimbabwe, and having spent a childhood in the jungles of Zambia, she embraces the dance of shamanic healing that DOWH offers. She is a developmental editor, a tutor, a certified Kundalini yoga instructor. Published in literary journals, her work shown in art shows, she is developing an aesthetic of multiplicities, of our beings as prisms, in which dance is a central metaphor for living and understanding our lives. Read Brenda's poem "Bramble Rose" and writing "Erica's Dance Our Way Home". A small videopoem she created after the Solstice Ecstatic Dance in June 2009 may be seen on her Celestial Dancers page of her website, Art & Writings. 

 * Gina Silvestri, Copy-writer
Gina found Dance Our Way Home in 2005, during a period of serious illness: walking into her first class, she had 17 medical diagnoses. Each dance since has nurtured unimaginable healing and beauty that continues to bloom, a process captured in her piece "Dancing Home". Shining with vibrant health, she now writes with the fluttering leaves and dancing waves of Lake Simcoe, paying forward the inspiration she found here internationally, as The Raw Muse.  

 Gina Catenazzo, Website Photographer 

Gina is soulfully passionate about creating and self-expression, be it through dance, graphic design, photography or life. www.ginacatenazzo.com  gina_catenazzo@hotmail.com

Lynna Landstreet, Webmistress

www.spidersilk.net  lynna@spidersilk.net

 * Tad Hargrave of Radical Business, Our Marketing Guru

Now 34, Tad is one of North America's younger (and more unusual) marketing consultants. Since 2001, Tad has been running Radical Business a mission based, socially conscious marketing consulting business for "green", locally owned, sustainable, holistic, life-affirming and otherwise conscious entrepreneurs. Early on in his career he stumbled across the notion of doing most his workshops on a pay-what-you-can basis so that they could be affordable to all. www.tadhargrave.com  tad@tadhargrave.com

* Photos not by Gina Catenazzo

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