Afro-BodyLove

This movement-based healing experience embodies mindful, soulful, spiritual, and functional practices, transforming your body to higher frequencies. Through breathwork, yoga, nervous system reset, and limbic brain retraining, this dance healing class will leave you feeling grounded, empowered, energized, connected, and overjoyed! The Afro-BodyLove experience journeys you through stillness and quickness, intentional and free movement to the rhythms of the African diaspora, meditative vocals, and the sounds of empowerment and liberation.

Class Flow:

• A yoga and breath-based warm-up grounds and connects us to our bodies and each other.
• We continue with accessible, repetitive movement combinations to the sounds of hip-hop, pop, Afro-Latin, and folkloric rhythms.
• Our journey ends in circle as we connect with JOY in community.

Who Is This For?

• Great for folks with physical, mental, & emotional limitations and disabilities that know their body, listen to their body, and may need to go slow and take a break during class. No judgment, just move your body:)
• All folks who center and cultivate black and brown healing and joy across race, ability, gender, sexuality, class, age, and health status.
• No experience needed: You don’t need to be a dancer or a healer to participate.

Takeways:

• Body Empowerment
• Better Sleep
• More Energy
• Access to JOY
• Community Connections

Your Instructor:

After nearly 20 years of serving black and brown communities through the production and presentation of culturally-specific dance, cultural equity grantmaking, and cultural placekeeping, Tyese Wortham shifts her equity lens to the health and wellness industry after suffering silently and in isolation for nearly 30 years with endometriosis and chronic Lyme disease. Now, Tyese speaks her truth boldly and proudly @thrivingwithlyme to bring visibility to Lyme disease and other complex, multi-systemic chronic illnesses and conditions in BIPOC communities. She created Afro-BodyLove to share an alternative pathway to optimal health that helped her reclaim her power and agency in her healing journey.

Combining the folkloric, spiritual, and performative traditions of the African diaspora with various integrative and functional healing techniques, Tyese lives to thrive using movement as medicine and community as care for her pillars of healing. She has been performing, teaching, and studying sacred and secular dance as a principal company member nearly all her life and has had the honor to perform in venues such as the Palace of Fine Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.

How do I prepare for class?

• YOU MUST REGISTER ONLINE BEFORE CLASS
• PLEASE FILL OUT THE WAIVER FORM
• A mask is REQUIRED (surgical mask preferred)
• Bring a yoga mat (yoga block & yoga blanket, if you’d like)
• Bring a water bottle (electrolytes strongly encouraged)
• Be prepared to dance barefoot (indoor dance shoes are ok)
• Dress in something comfortable that you can move in freely.
• Dress in layers to stay warm during moments of stillness.

COVID Safety:

• A mask is REQUIRED (Surgical masks are preferred to N95 masks that restrict airflow and make breathing more difficult.)
• Vaccination and testing are not required.
• When the weather permits, the rolling door to the studio will be open for fresh airflow.
• 1-2 Blueair air purifiers will be running during class.

Class Capacity: A maximum of 12 people