Creating Vibrancy through Yoga, Movement and Dance-
The Paths of Two Inspiring Women
by Cristin Tighe

Two years ago, after moving to DC, I searched to find someone like Amarjit, my amazing Kundalini teacher in Boston. (She taught classes--on the seven chakras and on the ten bodies--which made me fall in love with yoga like I loved my dance classes through childhood into college.) So, I searched the phone book and the Internet for yoga in DC. Eventually, I found a wonderful studio and teacher whose work integrated all aspects I wanted in my yoga practice: inner body awareness, spiritual calming, poses with movement, mindful meditation and breath work. Eliana Bacas, at Spiral Flight-A Center for Yoga and the Arts, with whom I have taken classes and been working for two years, became one of my guides.

Then, last fall, Eliana introduced me to her friend, an eclectic, spiritual dancer -Michelle Ava- who dances her way through life blending movement, music, meditation and yoga. (Michelle is a key part of DC’s spiritual arts community, as Founder of Joy of Motion in 1976, and today through the work of AvaDance™.) Michelle wanted help organizing SpiritDance Community Gatherings™ for spiritual and expressive Movement, Music, Meditation and More™ (a concept that re-emerged and grew from 9/11). These Gatherings create a forum for people to join in community, discover our own self-awareness and live more expressively, joyfully and in relatedness. I’ve enjoyed this community that gathers monthly to dance playfully and vibrantly. Michelle helped me rediscover living in movement and dancing my life.

The similarities between Eliana’s and Michelle’s work are amazing, and their abilities to inspire will reveal that they know something we all should!

	Michelle’s Authentic Vibrant Awareness	Eliana’s Spiral Flight Yoga
What is it?	Vehicle to integrate body and spirit and create mind-body fusion by unleashing blocks that inhibit free flowing motion/communication	Yoga that awakens your inner body by moving or channeling your core energy in order to release tension and blockage
How it works?	Integrates expressive dance, yoga, energy, transformational breath work and intuitive and improvisational motion	Provides a means to connect from your center and your heart as you find ease and release from struggle through Prana (the vital life force)
Benefits	Helps reveal your true individual movement style, energy dynamics, and creative self-expression Learn modalities that synergize and balance: technique with expression, spontaneity with structure, inner guidance with celebration of spirit, transformation and self-discovery, improved alignment, balance, centering, enhanced confidence, greater flexibility, increased energy, awakened sensuality	Takes you to a deeper, more primal level of body-mind awareness as you attain effortless physical movement Helps you learn to allow breath-motivated movement Return to Yoga’s origins-where poses emerge spontaneously form deeper states of meditation and one’s consciousness
Overall	Brings meditation and yoga into our dance, resulting in being more at home in our bodies and living life with freedom, openness, love and compassion	Brings more dance into our bodies and our beings, resulting in physical ease and spontaneity

Why do these two women pursue their certain paths? Eliana says she finds such satisfaction in this work because she witnesses lives changing for the better - people come into class totally stressed and walk away feeling a deeper sense of themselves and connecting to a place of serenity and joy. She also claims to experiences these things she teaches - as they say, the teacher teaches what she needs to learn - it's SO true! She says teaching and sharing, from her own experience, deepens all of that within her. She feels this work is vital soul work and she is very honored to be able to take part in such an amazing adventure!

Michelle says that Dance/Movement is a Spiritual practice. Dance is the voice of the Dharma and taking refuge in it wakes us up... we can unwind, get present and come home to our Divinity and the Divine in all things. This is significant, because our Body is our Temple; it's where we live! Being in the dance is BEing the Dance; it becomes a Meditation, a Prayer. She is reminded of what really matters… to be a part of something much larger then ourselves.... to slow down, speed up, embrace all of life’s rhythms... be in the NOW and in the dance with others, in community, is the great JOY. We are all connected...WE are the Dance!

Are you inspired? Eliana and Michelle constantly inspire me, as they weave their lives, merging yoga and movement, with healing, arts, philosophy, music, poetry, and community! Eliana and Michelle show me that dedication to self-actualization, following intuition, and being in awareness of our bodies, can have a major impact on the lives we create; and on how these lives are interwoven with others around us in a positive way. I am lucky to know these women as vibrant proof that daily commitment to revealing our own authentic selves, awakening our inner bodies and spirits, expressing our core energy and letting it guide us will lead to full lives. And that these full, vital lives can draw people into the awakening of inner movement allowing us to dance vibrantly!

Spiral Flight-A Center for Yoga and the Arts offers classes and workshops in an eclectic selection of yoga styles and movement. Drop by 1726 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, DC or call 202-965-1645.

AvaDance organizes monthly SpiritDance Community Gatherings, workshops, classes, and private sessions in Authentic Vibrant Awareness. Call 202-332-2989 or write spiritava@aol.com.

Eliana Bacas has been a devoted daily practitioner of yoga and meditation since 1976. She is a certified Kripalu Yoga Instructor, Holistic Health Counselor and Educator, Shiatsu Therapist, Meridian Shiatsu Institute, and Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist. For over ten years, she has been strongly guided by gifted energy healer Luisa Koller, and since 1993 her teaching has been most affected by noted teachers Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten, who specialize in core energy movement.

Michelle Ava (Masters in Dance Education) is an innovative dance educator, choreographer, bodywork therapist and spiritual teacher. With over three decades of experience, she inspires people to recognize their potential through dance, yoga and personal expression. She approaches movement as a healing art, a way to embrace possibilities through mind, body, and spirit fusion. She is a vital force in DC’s dance and holistic community, and teaches and presents her work both locally and nationally.

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Georgetown's first & DC's original yoga center, since 1997 Spiral Flight is a safe, peaceful, spiritual space to experience yoga & more

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