BIG NEWS! We are back at Blossom Wellness Studio for fall-winter-spring!

We are back at the beautiful, light-filled Blossom Wellness Center studio in downtown Montpelier.

Join this vibrant, welcoming, hilarious class that’s a workout, a party, and a celebration!

Check out the details below for how to sign up for class at our beautiful studio.

Yes, Zoom is always still an option!*

*But you need to sign up before 7 am Saturday to attend via Zoom.

Sign up before 7 am Saturday to attend via Zoom.

And voilà! You’ll receive the link by email at 8 am.

If you sign up after 7 am, I won’t see your email in time, and you won’t get the link.

Let’s avoid this huge bummer-for-all - but, if you do happen to miss the 7 am Zoom cut-off, please consider signing up ahead of time for next week, or coming to the studio instead.

Sign up to reserve an in-studio spot at Blossom.

This lovely, friendly 2nd-floor downtown studio has airy, bright, and playful energy and a rich and gorgeous sound system. It’s an incredible place to dance together and I am grateful to be there!

For everyone’s safety, comfort, and freedom of movement, Blossom studio attendance is firmly capped at 20. Yes, you are always welcome to try dropping in! But if class signup is full, Blossom also has a lovely wait-list option that works incredibly well, so it’s definitely worth it to get on the list.

Also, there is sometimes a last minute spot open right before class (like, as in, at 8:50 am) because someone who signed up but suddenly, last-minute, cannot attend - so even if you find yourself without a reserved spot, it may still be worth a gamble to show up around 8:45 and see if there’s room.

Yes, Blossom has a sliding scale, $10-$17!

Yes, Zoom is always an option! If you’d like to attend by Zoom, please sign up below before 7 am Saturday. Remember, if you sign up after 7 am Saturday, I am in class prep mode and not able to monitor email, so you will not receive the link for Zoom class.

Joanie, Andy and the Blossom crew are wonderful, the studio space is bright and cheerful and gorgeous, and the stereo is BANGIN’. Blossom’s teachers are exceptional, and you will find an amazing selection of classes in addition to ours!

I can’t wait to sweat together (and say Happy Saturday to downtown Montpelier)!

To make it even sweeter, there’s yoga at 10:30 am if you want to capitalize on an amazing movement practice double-dip…or head to the famous “Third Half of class” at a local coffee shop.

Please do check here every Saturday morning before you head out for in-person class - right here is where I post any changes, by 6:30 am Saturday.

Yes! I am proud to continue the tradition we began in 2020: a portion of every ticket for every class I teach goes directly to organizations working to heal some of the many harms of systemic racism in the U.S. Please see below for details on what we’re funding this year.

Looking to expand your movement and dance repertoire in beginner-friendly, welcoming online dance classes? Try the gem that is Tony Yemaya’s Orisha Dance class, or one of the other fabulous dance fitness selections, at Cumbé Center for African and Diaspora Dance.

And please consider checking out virtual classes with my teachers, friends and colleagues Zoor Galant and Anna Marchenko, Marlex Pagalunan, Jonathan Benoit (especially his Sunday Blast series), Rita Cohen, Adela Teodora Iacob, Mojo Brown, or Loretta Bates (who also teaches a beautiful belly dance class every other Saturday at 11 am).

Pro tip: If you ever want to double up with a delightful, demanding belly dance fitness class at 11 am Saturdays, the great Loretta Bates teaches one of my favorites (nearly) every other week. It’s quite different from Zumba, and quite good.

More info: https://lorettabates.com/virtual-classes/

CHECK IT OUT!

If You’re Surviving Domestic or Sexual Violence: Free Classes!

Hey! If you’re surviving domestic or sexual violence, first of all, I’m so sorry that someone is treating you badly. You are not alone, and you don’t deserve it.

I welcome you to come to class as my guest, and I finally figured out how to create a special link so you can do so! I believe in the transcendent healing power of liberatory dance fitness, especially in a group that’s filled to the brim with playful good humor, goodwill, mutual admiration, and unconditional support for each other, just as we are, with absolutely nothing to change or fix. Getting our mojo back when someone has been abusive to us can be transformative, and liberatory dance fitness can be one of the joyful tools of our own healing. I welcome you to try it out!

So if you’re a current or recent survivor, and you’d like to to try class as my guest, please feel free to use this button to register for free. If confidentiality is a concern, you do not have to enter any identifying information other than a first name (so I know what name to say hi to you with at class) and an email (so you’ll get the Zoom link). Just put an X in the other blanks on the form if you need to, and feel free to fib about what town and zip code you’re in, if that feels safer for you. It goes without saying that I never, ever share your info with anyone else, or mention who uses the Solidarity Pass, or ask you any questions about your situation. We’re not here for that - we’re just here to shake our booties together to great music in excellent, supportive company - and to receive all the benefits from doing so. I look forward to dancing together on the screen or on the Green!

https://www.vtnetwork.org/get-help/

What We’ve Funded So Far

In 2020 and 2021, we kept our focus on ending white supremacy by giving to Black Lives Matter. In 2022-2023, we diversified our donations to support 3 broad areas of focus, which are aligned with our class community and constitute an explicitly anti-supremacist agenda: joy, education, and freedom. We’ve shared funds with:

• nature-based Black joy and leadership programs through Outdoor Afro,

• the Kenyon Access Initiative, which funds full scholarships for under-represented students with financial need to attend a selective liberal-arts college (my alma mater) - and our contributions were 1:1 matched, doubling our impact!

• and the Equal Justice Initiative, which is working for to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment, challenge racial and economic injustice, and protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable.

Wanna see what else is happening at our beloved 3-season home, Camp Meade? Check out their page here.

Join the fun! With welcoming, inspiring classes and workshops, coaching programs, and retreats grounded in the sacred pleasures of movement, laughter, belonging, and growth, I teach pleasure-centered, womxnist, holistic and multi-dimensional wellness and life design.

Joyful, inclusive classes are potent and magical spaces where we can practice internal freedom and delight, and develop an unbreakable sense of goodwill for all - no exceptions - starting with ourselves.

Together, we practice internal freedom and delight by dancing our patooties off to easy-to-follow, patterned choreography set to a heart-pumping Latin and international playlist - led by a perfectly imperfect, playful and irreverent teacher.

Not to mention that we also boost our immune system, reduce stress, build our emotional resilience, and improve our cardiovascular fitness, mobility, coordination, bone density and muscular strength.

This is no regular class - it’s an anti-perfectionista, celebratory workout that’s scalable for every body and will leave you sweaty and smiling (and high-fiving your dance floor neighbor).

That’s a whole lot of goodness packed into an hour. So come on! Meet you on our grassy (or Zoom) dance floor, which is full of the most welcoming, supportive people you could imagine. See you soon!

About My Approach (Or, Dance Fitness and Liberation For All)

And as we witness ourselves (and our gorgeous, ordinary, extraordinary classmates) becoming ever more capable - from learning that tricky salsa step to doing precise squats, even lower than we could last week - we can begin to apply that to the parts of our lives that need it most.

Maybe we begin to say “no thanks” to that extra work obligation that leaves us depleted, or to the way someone in our life speaks to us when they’re angry - or we begin to say “yes, please!” to our most dearly-held desires, whether that’s time outdoors or taking that class or visiting that sacred site we’ve always wanted to see.

Surprising, exciting, satisfying things start to happen.

Soon, we can’t sustain the argument any more about why we “can’t” do X, Y, or Z. At some point, we forget why we ever thought we couldn’t.

This weekly practice - making the previously-impossible possible, over and over, week after week, in the company of wild supporters - is revolutionary.

And you already know this: my classes and my coaching are all about the paradox of approving of ourselves, exactly as we are, even as we grow ourselves ambitiously into exactly who we want to become.

We practice self-honoring boundaries and loving self-regard - by twerking, body-rolling, sweating it out, and having the last laugh.

And we practice it by holding each other in judgment-free, unconditional positive regard. Soon, we can do that with everyone - even people with whom we have vigorous and well-founded disagreements.

Being able to maintain our discernment, follow our highest integrity, have excellent boundaries, and treat everyone in the world, no exceptions, with dignity and generosity? Well, that’s the foundation of a civil and compassionate society. (Which really puts a new spin on Wisin and Yandel and Daddy Yankee’s assertion that '“todo siempre comienza en la disco [everything always starts in the disco]”.) To think: a civil and compassionate society can start on the dance fitness floor.

And yes - of course we also get all of the other benefits that come when you build cardiovascular fitness, coordination, balance, flexibility and strength. Not to mention that we develop a diverse new movement vocabulary, and learn to use our beautiful, perfect, nothing-to-fix-here bodies unapologetically and confidently. Yes! All of that, too.

If you just want a fabulous workout, and you’re not into my grandiose dreams about the power of collective dance fitness to create a world where we treat ourselves and each other in spectacularly just and kind ways? No problem! Come get your groove on and have a fabulous workout, together with the friendliest and most good-natured crew you can imagine. Enjoy satisfying, inclusive and scalable classes that can be as high- or low-intensity as you want.

I’m delighted to continue the tradition we began in July 2020: a portion of every class ticket goes directly to organizations working to end white supremacy and support racial justice in the U.S.