9-9:30am Healthy Bodies; Stretch and Strengthen
Wake up your body and brain in this fun and gentle morning movement class! We'll stretch, strengthen, and draw from different modalities including Yoga, Pilates, Franklin Method, active flexibility, and anatomy-inspired exercises, discovering a little about how our bodies and minds work along the way. Come as you are; sleepy, creaky, or cheerful, and leave feeling warm, energized, connected, and ready to start the day.
Want to stay a little longer? The class that follows weaves in playful solo and partner explorations, light improvisation, and visualization practices and transitions into more Middle Eastern-specific movement around 9:45am.
About Natalie Nayun
Natalie is an international teacher specializing in contemporary and folkloric styles from Central Asia and the Middle East. She was lucky enough to study dance in her travels to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Oman, and has been dancing for more than 17 years and teaching for more than 11. Natalie is the director of UC Berkeley’s Central Asian and Middle Eastern Dance Company, Sorayya, and former director of Adara Dance Company. You can see her dancing with Nava Dance Collective, with Ballet Afsaneh, and as a soloist.
Natalie has performed and taught in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Israel/Palestine, and New Mexico, and locally in California as a guest lecturer at Stanford University. She hopes to share the beauty of the cultures she has come to know, as expressed through regional dance.