The Return to Embodiment: consciousness, culture, creativity and flourishing

Cuquis Robledo is a mental health counselor in Houston, TX with a passion for incorporating the arts, movement, and advocacy with her clients. Prior to her work as a counselor, Cuquis was a disability advocate and a documentarian, documenting the lives and empowering the voices of people of disabilities and other marginalized communities. Being disabled herself, specifically Cuquis is a Little Person, Cuquis takes pride in working on guiding those with and without disabilities to find their voices and find ways to create empowerment in their lives. Born in a Cuban-American family, Cuquis grew up learning Latin dance when she was two years old. However, a complication with a spine surgery left her almost paralyzed. Through her recovery she used Latin dance as a form of physical rehabilitation while also healing herself emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Since that moment in her life, she’s been incorporating Latin dance and dancing mindfulness in the work she does, inspiring others to find their sense of freedom, belonging and acceptance through life's circumstances using Latin dance. 

Learn more about's Cuquis story at https://cuquisrobledo.com/ and her storytelling at https://www.cuquisrobledostudios.com/ and connect with her on instagram @standtallcuquis

Rebecca Barnstaple is a dance researcher and clinician who brings dance therapy to people with chronic pain, Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's disease. As a postdoctoral fellow at York University in Toronto, Rebecca conducts research on the neurbiological effects of dance on health and disease.

In this conversation, Kristina traces ways her own body and development interfaced with limitations of the dance world, and how she has found home in practices of intenttionally dismantling harmful conditioning and building movement from a posture of love and seeking pleasure in the body. Kristina talks about the therapeutic dance certificate offered through EEIC and the honor of facilitating the unique artistry of each person's unique and changing embodied expression. Kristina states, "we will never know everything about the body. We have to come in here with respect for the mystery of, of all the processes that are always happening that we may never understand and still be with ourselves deeply without knowing why."

Ashley Fargnoli is a dance/movement therapist, a licensed psychotherapist, a dance performer, a choreographer, a film maker, a researcher, and a Fullbright scholar.

In this conversation, we explore the multicultural origins of embodiment and the ways in which parts of ourselves and are accessed and healed through different styles of dance. Ashley describes working with a performance as therapy model, the importance of creative process in the life of a therapist and also reflects on belonging as a function of participation within a dance community.

For more information, visit Ashley's website: https://ashleyfargnoli.com/

Molly Shanahan is a Canadian-born, U.S.-based choreographer and dancer, educator, thinker, and writer about movement, body, and healing.

She makes dances.

She supports movers in reinhabiting their own bodies in relationship with other movers, prioritizing deep exploration of movement and inquiry into what human experience and response drives our movement choices, especially within the phenomenon of being seen.

For more information about Molly's teaching, performances, writings, and experience, visit https://www.mollyshanahanspiralbody.com/about

In this conversation, Dr. Amber Elizabeth L. Gray asks a series of questions, which deepen us into the question of embodiment and its function to sensitize us to one another and cultivate respect and reciprocity within the more than human world.

https://ambergray.com/

Gray, A.E.L., Kennedy, J.R. Marian Chace Foundation 2022 Lecture & Introduction from the 57th Annual American Dance Therapy Association Conference, Heartlines: Gathering Wisdom from Many Streams; Montreal, Canada. Am J Dance Ther 45, 88–108 (2023).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10465-023-09384-7

Kamahria Hopkins, is a therapist, coach and consultant who offers "online therapy for the modern mystic." Kamahria integrates somatic and transpersonal practices including dance therapy and psychological tarot/astrology. In this conversation, Kamahria shares about her work in hospice, as a doula, and as a journalist and how these roles have prepared her to work with clients to reignite their magic and realign their body, mind and spirit.