I’ve mentioned it in a lot of posts, but I’ve never really described it. Our website gives much more information, including how we got the name, and pictures of the building. Since these pictures were taken, we had to have the roof redone because the original started leaking. Here is what it looks like now:
Neskaya was designed as “sacred space” for movement disciplines that are also spiritual practices. The building has a sprung wooden floor designed to accommodate dancers and martial arts practitioners. An arched roof creates a sense of spaciousness, as well as providing splendid acoustics. There is a balcony, which can provide space for viewers, and an East wall which accommodates a variety of seasonal decorations. We have two showers and two lavatories and a kitchen. We are handicapped-accessible.
We opened in the fall of 1996 with classes in Yoga, Aikido, and Sacred Circle Dance. Since then, we have offered classes and workshops in Tai Chi, Chi Gung, and International Folk Dance. Currently we are offering Tai Chi, Circle Dance, Yoga, and Nia.
In the belief that everything is connected to everything else, and that if humans are to survive the current planetary crisis, we need to recognize that we are a part of the natural world, Neskaya offers ways of celebrating our place in the natural world thru seasonal celebrations. In the belief that one of the ways to end war is to make our differences a reason for celebrating rather than fighting, we do dances from around the world. In times of crisis, we dance to support everyone in finding the best way out. At the time of the fighting in Kosovo, we did dances from Kosovo, Albania, and Serbia as a prayer for this region to heal its differences. We do “Red Rain,” played by musicians from Greece, Turkey and Armenia, as a prayer for peace between cultures that have been fighting each other for generations.
Our mission is to promote inner happiness, healthy social connections and world peace through the practice of celebrating our differences. By offering such activities as Sacred Circle Dance and Yoga we want to heal the divisions between soul and body, between people of different cultural backgrounds and between human beings and the material body of our planet.
My commitment is to the fundamental truth that exists in the structure underlying the dances — that the dances, like yoga postures and crystals, have patterns that are rooted deep in the body of our mother the earth, that the dances in themselves, of themselves, convey knowledge through our bodies to our spirits. What I am trying to do at Neskaya is to be in contact with the deepest layer of that structure, so as to make it possible for my dancers to have the opportunity to contact that structure themselves.
A friend who is a therapist said that Neskaya is a “healing sanctuary.”
If you click on the link below that says Circle Dance, you will get all the posts that describe what we do here.