The Heart Behind the Movement

Inspired by the vision of the Indian mystic Osho, I believe in the “new man”—one who is an authentic blend of celebration and silence. Like a mix of Zorba the Greek and Siddhartha the Buddha, we aim to be individuals who can dance in the moonlight while peacefully watching the swans on a lake.

My mission is to facilitate a space where you can stay centered in yourself while celebrating life through dance.

Picture with my family from 2016. Our son Peter, and my husband Paul. Paul and I met at the Osho Ashram in Pune India in 2004. He is my biggest supporter through all of life’s ups and downs. What has kept us together is the deep soul love for one another and our commitment to consciousness.

My Journey

As far back as I can remember I loved to dance.   My parents and much older siblings would spend many evenings being entertained by my dancing before I could barely walk. 

I have worked on letting go of conditioning and breaking through many inhibitions and fears in this lifetime, but for some reason I always felt comfortable under my skin while dancing!  This is how I most readily felt joy and freedom!

Growing up in Canada as a child of Greek immigrants, I wanted to pursue financial independence, so I became a Chartered Accountant and worked for large multinational corporations for the first part of my life.  I traveled extensively and enjoyed the freedom that money and status provide.

Being bi-lingual allowed me the opportunity to move to Athens, Greece, where I ended up living for 12 years, and where I came into contact with the Indian mystic Osho.   I loved living in Greece, not only for the beauty of the place but also the Zorba the Greek energy… which was re-kindled in me!   I fell in love with life, with love, with dance and celebration once again.

In my early thirties, I spent a year on sabbatical at Osho’s meditation center in Pune India, where a dancing meditation was held twice daily. This is where I had my first experience of freedom beyond my physical form.

After joyously dancing for a while, I suddenly felt no body, no boundary, I was enveloped in pure joy and energy and transported beyond time and space. 

I did not think too much of the experience and soon forgot all about it until many years later.  After meeting my spouse-to-be at the Osho meditation center, I moved to San Francisco where I continued to work for large multinationals.

Upon finding out that my mother suffered a serious stroke, I returned to Greece with my husband to take care of her along with my sister.  There I completed 200-hour Anusara Yoga Teacher training and fell in love with practicing and teaching yoga in Greece. 

A few years later we decided to have a child and while I was pregnant, we decided to move near Paul’s family in Knoxville TN.  Shortly after moving there, I started the Knoxville Movement Collective, a not-for-profit dance collective, which is still dancing today!

This is the time I started working with my teacher, Eliza Mada Dalian, an awakened former student of Osho. When our son turned five, we moved back to the West Coast, this time to beautiful Encinitas, CA.

My work with Mada over the past 12 years, in person and through online retreats, has deepened my practice of systematic shadow and spiritual work, which continues to this day.

Mada’s Dalian Method for Healing into Consciousness offers practical tools for transformation and expanding awareness.  I pray that I can be of service in my inspiration to share my love and joy of conscious dance with others!

“I celebrate myself, and I hope soon the day will come you will be celebrating yourself. And when thousands and thousands of people around the earth are celebrating, singing, dancing, ecstatic, drunk with the divine, there is no possibility of any global suicide.  With such festivity and with such laughter, with such sanity and health, with such naturalness and spontaneity, how can there be a war?”  ~Osho