Focus on Dance and Healing

We will focus on dance languages of Ballet, Release, Contact Improvisation, Flying Low & Passing Through for bringing the body and mind in a state of high physical performance.

The PADHA program is designed to teach and transmit to dance artists contemporary dance techniques,

• Dance: Ballet, Contemporary, Somatics, Experiential Anatomy, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Improvisation.

• Choreography: Composition, Narrative Development, Choreology, Choreoritual, Emotional Training Techniques and Methodologies.

• Performance: Repertoire, Performance & Theatre Studies, Interpretation.

• Healing: Yoga, Qigong, Craniosacral, Thai – Abdominal & Deep Tissue Massage, Breathwork.

• Meditation: Mindfulness, Yin & Yang Balance, Vipassana, Movement Meditation.

• Teaching: Teachers Training Courses with an emphasis on teaching techniques and methodologies in Dance & Healing.

Dance has always been an activity to connect with one another, nature, earth, ancestors, and the universe (referring to tribal, shamanic, folklore and traditional dances). People around the world have created significant events like rituals, tribal and also more importantly used dance to hallmark important periods rites of passage.

Dance now is open and receptive to new inputs from different forms as well as being part of our everyday life. We move now to a deeper interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach in dance practice that is more physical, improvisational, emotional, compositional, scientific, technological, therapeutic, healing, educational and simultaneously expressive, participatory, dialogic, integrative, interactive, performative and spiritual.

Having such a broad and inclusive spectrum of what dance is, unquestionably, it can enlighten our perspective on life and how we interact and communicate with society.

Many studies have shown that the healing power of dance also extends to people experiencing emotional trauma, grief, mental disorders, loss, and chronic illness. Combining these findings and integrating dance practice with yoga, qigong and healing modalities, dance becomes an even more powerful healing modality.

When we experience a blockage or a traumatic incident in our mind, body or soul,  dance can be the medium to express what is ‘hidden’ within and become a therapeutic, transformational and a holistic dance practice.

Dance has numerous health benefits and research continues to demonstrate the positive benefits of dance on longevity and overall well-being. Moreover dance improves strength, stamina, cardiovascular function, balance and harmony in body mind and heart; decreases stress, improves immune system function and promote emotional and psychological well-being. Important also is that heightens coordination and adaptability in unexpected circumstances, something that adds a great value in our contemporary and fast-paced lives we are currently living.

In addition to improving overall physical fitness and ability, movement and dance can offer following benefits:

• Improved coordination.
• Adapting in life’s unexpected circumstances.
• Increased confidence.
• Boost in self-esteem.
• Improved fine motor skills.
• Fine-tuned coordination between body & mind.
• Greater ability to control impulses and emotional stress.
• Outlet and release for emotionally challenged times.
• Emotional maturity.
• The ability to know how to communicate with body language.
• Heighten intuition, feeling, intention and sensitivity.

The course will merge high standards of dance training with healing and spiritual practices.

Usually dance-healing practices have been more received by people who feel it is not that physical or demanding practice.

At PADHA one year program, we are integrating physical dance training, embodied somatic practice, healing and spirituality.

Dancing For Healing

The aim of this program is to advance understanding and embodiment of the healing properties of dance and by integrating healing modalities, meditation and energy work, to bring contemporary dance in the forefront of dance practice for boosting healing and  overall well-being.

Dance, both old and new, is also being used specifically to promote health and wellbeing. However, we used to practice dance to honour Earth, our ancestors and also to celebrate being together as human being. We have, nowadays, lost somehow the ritualistic and healing aspects of dance.

Ritual is in fact an inevitable component of culture, extending from the largest-scale social and political processes to the most intimate aspects of our self-experience.

A ritual is an ordered sequence of activities that involves movements, gestures, bodies, text, music and objects, performed in an appropriated and well-prepared place, connecting with the environment and elements of nature to heighten energy, heal, dedicate and devote the act to a higher cause and purpose.

In this program we will be introducing the term ChoreoRitual which is the arrangement (composition) of and an agreement between the performers, and object(s) manipulated by the performers in the appropriate environment, towards creating the desired plot (dramaturgy) for a unified whole (Mise en Scene) to create and convey a contextual meaning to heighten energy, heal, dedicate and devote for a higher cause and purpose.

What is vital here to acknowledge, is the intention of why we do what we do and how we construct an environment and behavior to fulfil our intentions.

A passage for dance as a spiritual practice will encompass:

• Technique
• Somatics
• Embodiment
• Performance
• Energy, generate & right use of

This program will offer you Theoretical & Empirical aspects to learn and embody a strong dance and healing practice to perform, choreograph, teach and transmit it to the world.