Learn and create choreography that tells a story based on the Indian folk dance of garba and abhinaya (gestural expression) of Indian classical dance to a Bollywood song in this fun and creative dance workshop.

Heena Patel

Heena is a somatic empowerment coach and artist who supports creatives and women of the global majority in creating a neuro resilient life, both professional and personal, shaped by their desires. For nearly 15 years, she has been amplifying South Asian arts and culture in the mainstream performing arts sector as a producer, agent-manager, mentor, artist, consultant, and curator. She turned her disadvantages as a woman of the global majority in a predominantly white field into her superpower, while also going against expectations of her as a South Asian woman and child of immigrants.

Her life has been shaped by taking messy, imperfect action. She brings these experiences, as well as the lessons of unlearning cultural conditioning and being a former workaholic to her work as a coach.

Dancing garba, an ancestral Gujarati folk dance for the Goddess, since she could walk, Heena weaves together somatic practices, spirituality, mindfulness, and meditation, and Indian dance in her work as a dance teacher.

Circling the Center - Garba Dance Alchemy