2022 Neskaya Virtual Dance Camp
July 22-24
This year’s Virtual Dance Camp was a huge success! A heartfelt thank you to all the presenters from around the globe who graced our camp sharing their love, commitment, and experience.
Many of our presenters have provided resources for more in depth study and practice. In areas where there is no resource information provided please contact the presenter directly for more information.
Friday, July 22
Caryn Clark, USA
Caryn is a retired YMCA Director, certified yoga instructor and licensed massage therapist with over 20 years experience. She teaches a weekly gentle yoga class at Neskaya.
Peter Vallance, Findhorn
Website: Home (peterthestoryteller.co.uk)
Peter joined us from Scotland where he lives and works at the Findhorn Foundation focalizing Sacred Circle Dance. He brought us a program of dances, photographs, archive video and anecdotes connected to his family, who come from the Shetland Isles. We saw video of legendary Scottish fiddler Tom Anderson playing the Shetland Clapping Dance (with Shetland dancers) and danced “Da Slockit Light” which is a dance choreographed at Dance Camp Wales by circle dance teacher Moonyeen. In addition to highlighting the Shetland connection, Peter told the story of how his father was guest of honour at a Latvian concert where “Blow, Wind, Blow” was sung – a tune which we know through Bernhard Wosien’s choreography “Light and Love.”
Regula Buchler, Switzerland
Email: [email protected]
Regula is from Geneva, Switzerland. She has always danced passionately. Her dance background includes ballroom dancing, west and central African dance, and jazz dance. In 1988 she discovered Sacred Circle Dance and began teaching soon after that. She loves equally popular European and choreographed dances; also Bach Flower dances and seated dances. At camp she shared some of Anastasia Geng’s Bach Flower Remedy choreographies along with other sacred circle dances.
Anastasia Geng
Anastasia
Dance Steps:
Cherry Plum – Bachflower
Der Garten – Friedel Kloke
Die Schöpfung – Nanni Kloke
Elm – Bachflower
Rock Rose – Bachflower
Vervain – Bachflower
Christine Read, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Christine is from Perth, Australia. She came to circle dance about 18 years ago with 15 Rock Rose – Bachflower‘ experience in ballroom and Latin American dance. For the last 15 years she’s been teaching circle dance mostly in Perth and occasionally in South Australia and Tasmania whenever she has been able to travel there. She teaches a variety of dances but leans towards the non-traditional. She also teaches some of her own choreographies, as well as dances from other Australian choreographers.
Full Dance Resource List: NESKAYA DANCE CAMP July 2022 Christine Read
Dance Steps:
Move Into Peace
Nowhere Else But Here (lead-in dance)
Om Shanti I Am Peace
Guardian Angels
Jerusalem
Perfection
Saturday, July 23
Shoshona Magill, Canada
Shoshona is a Canadian dancer. She has been circle dancing since 1990. She facilitates 3 dance circles in Ontario, 2 are monthly and 1 is weekly. She has offered a Meditative Dance Session for several years at our annual dance camp. She recently said she considers Neskaya to be her home dance circle and we’re so grateful she accepted Neskaya’s invitation to share her meditative dances again for camp this year.
Dance Steps:
BARDO GATHERING
DANCING BUTTERFLIES (SUN MEDITATION)
Gaia Nectar
Mahatma
SA TA NA MA (JANE)
She Who Hears
Virtue
Stefan Freedman, England
Email: [email protected]
Stefan is well known in the international Circle Dance community for his clear and encouraging facilitation, but also as a talented choreographer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, film maker and recording artist. As well as sharing several beautiful dances, Stefan explored ways of leading dance with trauma awareness and consultation. He addressed aspects of circle dance offering safety, solace, hope and catharsis, and introduced us to his “Three petals of therapeutic dance”.
Stefan is very pro-active with his material and you can find news and videos from him on his web page and Facebook. Here are some links in case you don’t already have them.
Stefan Freedman – DANCE WISE
Introducing Stefan Freedman and the Dancewise Project (part 1) – YouTube
(15) Dancewise | Facebook
Gwyn Peterdi, USA
Website: Home – World Circle Dance
Gwyn first encountered Circle Dance in 1987 and immediately saw its unique potential to help us move into the Ecological Age. From that moment on she has continually organized Circle Dance events and taught in many places including USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. She is a founder of New England Circle Dance Camp and Mexico Circle Dance Festival. She has been a featured teacher at hundreds of workshops from Circle Dance to the healing arts, to Permaculture. She is a certified massage therapist, yoga practitioner, a teacher of Paneurhythmy and many of her choreographies are world-wide favorites.
Community Dance
Amy Antonucci, USA
[email protected]
Amy began her journey with Sacred Circle Dancing on a Mexico trip with Gwyn Peterdi in 1997. Then in 2002 she started her own monthly dance circle on the NH Seacoast. She has continued her dance circle throughout this pandemic with both zoom and outdoor dances and has created many of her own choreographies over the years.
Dance Steps:
Weve-got-the-Right
Behold
Julia Lynam, USA
Email: [email protected]
When Julia discovered circle dance in 1993 in Brighton, England her life was transformed forever. She’s been a dedicated Neskayan since 1996 and a storyteller all her life. She has been sharing zoom dance and storytelling programs throughout Covid and also leads her own dance circle in Burlington, VT.
Joanna Novosedlik, Canada
Email: [email protected]
Joanna is a classical vocal musician, devotional music singer and teacher who shares her passion for soul connection through music and the arts with children and adults of all ages. She presently offers private coaching sessions, workshops, ritual, sacred circle dance and seasonal gatherings using expressive arts and vocal sound healing modalities for the purpose of helping others find their own authentic inner soul voice and sounding it for personal self-transformation and healing.
Gurunam Khalsa, USA
Email: [email protected]
Gurunam joined us from West Palm Beach, FL US. She has been circle dancing for over 30 years. She has been to Findhorn and has served on the steering committee for Circle Dance New England for several years. She led a weekly class at Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach Fl for about 5 years. She has choreographed several unique dances and shares them on her YouTube channel at Gurunam Khalsa. While dancing in person has a lot of powerful benefits, she believes the ease, frequency, and global access we have been able to enjoy during Covid has made our circle dancing connection and community even stronger!
Hope Jinishian, USA
Email: [email protected]
Hope has been a lover of Sacred Circle Dance since she walked in a blizzard to Ellen Kennedy’s circle in Newburyport. MA in 1989. Soon after that she hopped on a plane with 11 new friends to Gwyn Peterdi’s Mexico Circle Dance Camp which she has returned to many times. She is a long time student of Laura Shannon’s Women’s Ritual Dance Program. In 2015 while volunteering at a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Woodstock, NY, Hope learned the Mandala Dance of the 21 Praises to Tara, a practice blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and based on a Tibetan Buddhist practice to Tara. Since then Hope has been guiding these profound meditative dance practices to children and adults in the U.S. and Mexico.
Sunday, July 24
Nevenka Dimitroya, USA
Nevenka started dancing Paneurhythmy in high school. She is passionate about promoting dance meditation for balancing the connection between the body, the mind and the soul. She leads the Paneurhythmy Dance group in New York City and gives impromptu tutorials to newcomers and colleagues all around the world knowing how important meditation is for today’s stressful life. By day she is a scientist working on cancer research, genomics and bringing technological innovation into the hands of scientists and practicing clinicians.
Handout: Paneurhythmy NH Neskaya Jully 24 2022
Mariana Pounova, Brazil
Email: [email protected]
(Mariana invites inquiries about her dances and music)
Mariana is a native of Bulgaria. She started learning Bulgarian traditional dance at an early age and participated in several student dance groups. Later, at the University of Sofia, she deepened her studies in ethnology and folklore aria, conducting research into sacral symbolism of the dance and its role in rituals and religious practices. She also participated in various seminars in Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia. Since 1998 she has been living in Brazil where she encountered circle dance and furthered her studies with great Balkan dance teachers. In love with the rhythms of the Balkan region, their complexity and richness of expression, she disseminates the authentic dances and popular culture of the various Balkan peoples, teaching in regular classes, workshops and festivals all over Brazil and Latin America and organizing folk dance tours around the Balkan.
Kevin Meyer, USA
Email: [email protected]
Website: East Tennessee Sacred Circle Dance | Knoxville, TN 37923 (inthedance.com)
Kevin fell in love with circle dancing when he lived in southeast England in 1988. In the early 1990’s he received training at Touchstone Farm in the reflective, meditative form of circle dance called Longdance. Over the years, he’s been blessed to dance in person, and now online as well, with so many inspirational teachers and leaders in the worldwide circle dance community. He loves to bring people together into a circle, moving and breathing together… He has facilitated bi-monthly Sacred Circle Dances and Longdances in Knoxville, Tennessee for 25 years. During the COVID shutdown he and his wife Diane hosted over 60 weekly Sunday afternoon online sessions from their living room. In July 2021 they returned to their regular bi-monthly format combining the pleasure of dancing in person with their local group with the online broadcasts. He is thrilled that our international community is now so connected through the wonders of technology to be able to join together in the dance through events like this camp hosted by Neskaya.
Program List: Kevin Meyer Neskaya Circle Dance Conference 2022
YouTube Channel to Search Dances: (68) Kevin Meyer – YouTube
Closing Program
Sylvie-Guylaine Fortin, Canada
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: Sylvie-Guylaine Fortin | Facebook
Sylvie-Guylaine joined us from Quebec, Canada. Her love story with dance goes back to her time in primary school, where she was part of a folk-dance group for 5 years. In Feb 2003 she signed up for her first workshop in sacred circle dance with Anja and Shaker from Touchtone Farm in MA, USA. Within a year she created her own Sacred Dance Circle and began teaching. She has choreographed many beautiful and unique dances and likes to include rituals inspired by many cultures in her dance sessions.
Dance Steps:
Blessed are the Peacemakers
HEALING PRESENCE
L’Offrande-the Offering (Sama Yoon)
Pilgrimage of Lost Children
Sigma
Evi Beck, USA
Email: [email protected]
Website: Evi Beck | EVIBECK.COM
Evi joined us from Washington, DC. She has been teaching Sacred Circle Dance for the past 20 years. Sacred Circle Dance changed her life path. She found the dance when she was still a professor of women’s studies and in training to become a psychologist, but once she experienced the healing powers of the dance she decided to dedicate her life to bringing the healing power of the dance to multiple communities and even into academic disciplines, most recently holistic aging. She has been leading a zoom dance circle twice a week since the beginning of the pandemic.
Dance Steps:
A’GHRIAN STEPS
Healing Song
IF THE PEOPLE LIVED THEIR LIVES
In Silence, My Soul
Papers:
Sacred Circle Dance in a Wheelchair
The Transformative Power of Dance final copy