6:40pm – Doors open
7:00pm – Class/Playshop: Rope Dance with Be and Fruit
8:20pm – Intention/container setting, ritual and orientation (Required*)
9-11pm – Everything Everywhere All At Dance with DJ Maya Light
*Unless you’ve already been to an Everything Everywhere All At Dance.
Cost: $20 at the door ~ Cash, Check, CC/Debit or ApplePay
Class description: Rope Dance is an embodied practice of merging contact improvisational dance and rope. It’s a practice full of exploration, playfulness, curiosity, creativity, spontaneity and possibilities.
- There is no need for experience with either contact improv or rope to join this playshop! This is a complete beginners class and can be a lovely introduction to how it feels to play with rope in both roles while learning some basics of contact improv through the explorations.
- Loaner rope is available for the workshop, but feel free to bring your favorite 15-20 footer.
- Wear a long sleeve shirt if you are concerned about the rope irritating your arms.
DJ Maya Light will be on the decks for this edition, starting off the first hour of music in your stereotypical Fusion fashion – fading out every song to mark the end of a dance, switching partners, then fading in a new track at the start of a new dance. And then she will shift to a seamless journey for the last half of the dance.
*** Due to a current surge of COVID that appears to be very contagious, we feel it is best to require negative test results to attend. You can either show your own COVID test at the door or show up 15mins early and purchase a test for $6 at the door.***
Benevolent Containment is a relational embodied practice steeped in darkness that orients to attunement and co-regulation. with a gentle pursuit towards softening through resistance, it draws upon contact improv, power exchange and skillful body manipulation to first build and then release tension in the body as we soothe and heal and play together.
Using pressure, force, and touch in deep and subtle ways, both statically and dynamically, the practice combines aspects of acro, partner stretching, grappling, cuddling, D/s, and primal archetypes in the aim of emotional and psychic release.
In this class we will be introducing the groundwork for skillful body manipulation and what it means to play a beautiful game.
Evan James
The dark underbelly of life intrigues Evan and he feels inspired to make the soulful descent as inviting as possible for others. As he pursued a number of movement practices his life, he’s often been attracted to the small, subtle exploration within different disciplines.
Evan’s passionate about the pursuit of exquisite movement – movement not just for movement’s sake or self-expression, but movement with purpose and meaning. He’s long been intrigued by the question: in the conversation of dance (and life), what are we saying with our efforts?
Drawing on Evan’s background in contact improv and martial arts, he endeavors to bring a reverence and discipline to this pursuit of exquisiteness. This principle is present in his personal practice and also in his classwork and he hopes you find it a soothing tree energy amongst some of the air-oriented spaces in our radical communities.
other passions of Evan’s that inform his practice are:
-nearly 15 years of contact improv
-10+ years in the poly/kink/sex positive community
-2 years of Brazilian jiujutsu
-over 2 years training in the lineage of Ido Portal
Lastly, Evan enjoys the pursuit of playing not just simply to win, but to play a beautiful game.
DJ Jess
Jess (they/them) has been dancing and grooving throughout their entire life. From ballet as a wee baby, to east coast swing as a teen, musical theatre, contact improv for many years… they finally landed in the fusion scene when they moved to CA two years ago.
Jess is currently a somatic psychology grad student, and a creative and mover in their spare time. Finding ways to weave the two worlds together keeps them curious and inspired about what kind of healing is possible through shared dance. They are excited and honored to share a sweet collection of music with you.
The Art of Close Embrace: The Moving Hug
Join us for “The Art of Close Embrace,” a connection-based partner dance workshop designed to deepen connections on the dance floor. This class draws from traditional lead/follow dance techniques, blending influences from Tango, Salsa, and Swing, and introduces our ‘Moving Hug’ techniques — a fusion of physicality and heartfelt engagement that creates a deeply connected, harmonious improv dance experience.
Starting with grounding exercises that integrate Reiki principles, we show participants how to tune into their partners’ energies, establishing a profound connection even before the physical dance begins. Our distinctive “Moving Hug” philosophy then guides you through essential aspects of close embrace dancing such as posture, weight distribution, and subtle adjustments, enhancing both leadership confidence and follower sensitivity. Finally, we introduce some basic principles of leading and following that add a little spice and create presence, polarity, and flow.
Ideal for both beginners and experienced dancers, this class serves as the gateway to our “Art of Close Embrace” series, providing a comprehensive exploration of intimacy on the dance floor. Join us to learn how to transform each embrace into a deeply communicative and enriching experience, thereby enhancing your dance skills and deepening interpersonal connections.
Angela and A'lan
Angela has been captivating the dance floor since she was 11 years old. With extensive experience in Europe and the Bay Area, she has mastered a variety of Ballroom and Latin dance styles, including Salsa, Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Bolero, Samba, Foxtrot, Tango, and Waltz. Currently, she excels as a Lead Studio Coordinator and Partner Flow Specialist, passionately guiding dancers through the intricate world of dance.
A’lan brings over two decades of experience to the dance floor, specializing in close-embrace dance forms such as Blues, Fusion, Tango, and Micro. A prominent figure in the national fusion scene, A’lan is known for his insightful teaching that emphasizes connection, consent, safety, and clear communication. He frequently travels across the US, teaching and DJing at various dance events.
Together, under Heartbeat Partner Dance, Angela and A’lan are committed to blending deep intimacy and spiritual practices into their dance teachings. At The Center SF, their monthly HeartBeat Dance nurtures a community engaged in heartfelt and sensual celebrations. They are excited about their new class offerings that bridge partner dance with elements of connection, healing, self-care, and spiritual growth, enhancing both their teaching approach and the experiences they offer to their students. This journey reflects their dedication to fostering not only dance skills but also a holistic journey of personal and community growth. Discover more about our journey and upcoming events at https://heartbeat.myflodesk.com/events
DJ A'lan
A’lan’s sounds broke onto the national festival scene at the Portland Fusion Exchange. Since then he’s played at SDFX, LVFX, SFFX, DFX, SFFX, MFX, Recess Festival, Seattle Fusion Dance Festival, Albuquerque Fusion Experiment, City in Motion, Emerald City Blues, Mile High Blues, and Bay Area Micro Festival, and Hi-Fi Dance.
With an impressive 18 years of experience DJing for partner dances (Ecstatic, Blues, Fusion, WCS and Tango) , DJ A’lan is set to captivate you with his sweet and spicy musical curation built for partnered dancing.
DJ CUTTaRUGG
CUTTaRUGG Brandon Bosch AKA RA’mmm AKA The Brilliant Elixir guy AKA The Celebration DJ AKA CUTTaRUGG is many things, but at his core, he’s a music lover.
His passion for music is palpable and dance floors reflect and amplify this love. ‘Whatever-his-name-is’ loves to spend days crafting intentional and thematic Dance journeys, always featuring easter-eggs and sonic innovations. Expect something unexpected and let’s cut that rug!
**** With the current rise in COVID cases and concern/care for some folx, as an act of inclusivity for immunocompromised individuals, we’re asking for COVID test results at the door. We’ll have tests for sale for $7 at the door or arrive with your test already taken on the way to save time.****
Kinetic Intimacy:
A Consent(Sual) Partner Dance Methodology
A methodology in building an embodied dance community of somatic awareness and synergy with consent culture. This class will focus on both energetic and somatic attunement. Interwoven with partner dance technique to navigate sweeter connections and flow in intimate partnered dance spaces. Cultivating trust to provide a far more rich, vulnerable, intimate and even sensual connection through partner dance on and off the dance floor.
Shantala Davis
Shantala is part of multiple dance communities and conscious festival culture who seeks embodied intelligence of movement in connection, expression and communication of dance. From Ecstatic Dance to Social Partner Dance, her passion and curiosity lies within the layers of intimacy that can exist within oneself and others within the somatic, energetic and technical layers of dance language.
As a ConSensual Connoisseur, Conscious Embodiment Facilitator, Mischievous Mystic, Sexual Priestess, Embodied Linguist & Somatic Relating Practitioner, Shantala Davis, aka: ShantiMonster, is a lover of a multitude of dance languages and embodied connection, bringing a diverse array of styles to her teachings, offerings & produced events. She travels all over the world sharing versatile concepts, integrating somatic, tantric and meditative practices with mastered dance partnering technique, including: West Coast swing, Zouk, Blues/Fusion, Contact Improv, Ecstatic Dance and her solo dance speciality Dance Sauce. Shantala is here to inspire, co-create, connect and transform through pleasure, play, and the magic and medicine that is dance.!! Meeeeeooow!!
DJ SyStemic
DJ SyStemic (Elliot Katz) is a dancer first, DJ second, intoxicated by the subculture of Fusion partner dance. His sonic inspirations blend sultry electro R&B, jazzy trap, melodic down-tempo hip hop, and acoustic world musicianship for an evocative arc of dynamic soundscapes.
Elliot is a founder of the PULSE Partner Dance Collective based in Sebastopol CA where he often DJs.
WatsoniX
Watson’s mission is to unite creator with source — to foster authentic expression of body through surrender to what wants to move through — supported by a deep, sweet and spacious structure of bass and vocal frequencies.
A lover of dance and a dancer of love, Watson is an embodied facilitator whose tool is sound waves that move beings. Drawing from over two and a half decades of sonic expression, Watsonix is a project which weaves an intricate web of rhythm, melody, voice, silence and especially bass frequencies that dance the body, drawing from cultures as disparate as the Middle East, India, Africa and Latin America, as contextualized and blended by some of the worlds most innovative sonic artists. Favorite among all spaces to DJ in are play spaces, where all forms of movement and inter movement are welcome to be explored. We look forward to helping give your body expression.
Dance of Dominance & Submission Explore conscious power play through dance. Power dynamics are present all the time, kink is about making power dynamics exquisitely clear, creative, consensual, and passionate. Want to adventure into desires that are at the edge of your comfort with a compassionate and present companion? Curious about embodying your dominant energy or your submissive energy in the dance?
This workshop invites us to contribute to each others’ erotic courage, vulnerability, and playful expression so we can create more meaningful intimacy. You are free to discover and ask for what you really desire in a compassionate space that does not shame your wants. This is also an empowering space to say, “no,” strengthen your boundaries and voice them with certainty. We will learn how to create a culture of shame resilience, attune to our own eros and healthy limits, and track our partner’s experience.
You are welcome to come with a beloved with whom you desire to go deep or to come ready to make some new sensual connections. Are you ready to play?! (Knee pads are encouraged but not required as we’ll have puzzle mats.)
Z (They/Them)
Z (aka Zahava Griss, pronouns: they/them) is the founder of Embody More Love, a spiritual kinky dance community for personal & cultural liberation. Since 1999, Z has been facilitating dance, embodiment and eros as a source of healing, creativity, building community, and shifting our culture. Z’s performance rituals, books, coaching, grief rituals, and workshops invite a dismantling of oppression so we can create more truthful, empowering, and meaningful relationships.
Their core offering is Play with Power & Gender through Dance, a 3 month spiritual kinky dance immersion. The next round is Oct to Jan! Learn more at https://www.embodymorelove.com/play (photo by @fourcubes.photography)
DJ Jonathan Liu
Jonathan is a musician-dancer with decades of experience playing the piano and singing. His first introduction to social dancing was through his college West Coast Swing club, and ever since then he has been hooked. Nowadays he primarily dances swing, tango, and fusion. He is a regular DJ at Bay Area fusion venues such as Shades, Mission Fusion, and Alchemy of Fusion.
When DJing, Jonathan loves to lean on his dual musician-dancer background to craft a deeply embodied connection between the floor and the music, regardless of dance background or genre. He loves creating seamless arcs through the night to take the dance floor on a magical adventure across soundscapes, from melty gush to lyrical transcendence.
DJ VICTOR
Victor has been a DJ since 1996, he specializes in top 40’s from the 80’s to the 2010’s, pop, soul, hip hop and rock. He is most well known for DJ-ing the adult events at Fairyland, and being the DJ for the now defunct Mouth Off Wednesdays, a once popular open mic in Oakland. He doesn’t come in with a playlist; he relies on his years of experience and musical knowledge to respond to the crowd.
He is one of Elle’s best friends and is excited to have been brought into the sensual communities. He also has a cheesecake business, Reuschelle’s Cheesecakes, which you will be able to purchase in the single serve size the night of the event.
Wrestling with Love is an emerging body of work incorporating elements of Sensual Wrestling, primal play, play fighting and ART. These fundamental practices create the container to hold each other in our struggles with life and work through the emotions that can arise when having something to resist against. Kittens, puppies and other mammals use mock fighting or roughhousing as a way to learn boundaries, self-defense and attunement, while bonding with their siblings. Wrestling with Love creates similarly safe space for this type of processing and learning.
This class will be (currently) limited to 48 participants due to limited puzzle mats (reach out to Be at eeaadance@gmail.com if you have any to bring) so arrive early/on time to get a spot, though witnessing on the sidelines will still be fun and/or you might get to tag in if someone chooses to sit out.
You’ll be asked to read these guidelines and rules upon arrival also but you can read them now as they’ll be part of the container we’re creating:
When you arrive, you’ll get on one mat area with the 3 others (4 total per mat), these will be your wrestling partners for the entire class unless of course anyone needs to step out and take of care of themselves.
All of these exercises are an invitation, check in with your body, speak up to negotiate with others and always take care of yourself first and foremost. We’ll have a couple roaming wrestlers to take your spot if you need to step out. Raise your hand(s) at any point to get teachers attention for any reason.
RULES:
- #1 Whenever in doubt, move slower aka slow the fuck down
- #2 Always at least one knee on the ground, never on both feet
- #3 No hitting, be aware of elbows/knees (refer rule #1)
- #4 Double tap someone to quickly indicate safe word or say “stop” or “yellow” for those kinky people (immediately let go of all tension and check in)
Jason is a creature that champions receiving the wide range of sensations which life evokes. With 23+ years of deepening into his bodywork practice he pulls from a wide range of modalities in order to be with and help facilitate the movement of the different nuances of what people wrestle with inside of themselves.
With a multifaceted passion for holistic wellness and self-exploration, Jason is deeply immersed in the transformative practices of yoga and dance, finding solace and self-expression in their fluid movements and spiritual depths. He indulges in the art of massage and wrestling, embracing touch and physicality as vehicles for both relaxation and intense engagement. Beyond the body, understanding archetypes and being fascinated by the symbolic language of the psyche and its reflection in the human experience is a driving force for him.
Be
Be has many passions, creating Everything Everywhere All At Dance and using wrestling as a medium for personal growth, empowerment and play! So Be is over the moon to be bringing the two together into one event.
Be did wresling in grade school but really reconnected with wrestling when at a play party and saw a small group of folx wrestling. After that experience Be starting bringing wrestling mats to play parties and was surprised by the amount of interest. Be has been visioning developing a body work of wrestling both as a private practice and day/weekend long workshops.
So now Be and Jason Rich are teaming up to deepen Sensual Wrestling and expand into Wrestling with Love, diving deeper into the emotional realms that are accessible through wrestling, primal play and play fighting.
DJ LALALOVE
LALALOVE is a passionate DJ known for curating soulful, high-vibrational experiences through Ecstatic Dance and Fusion dance sets. With a deep love for rhythm, connection, and the transformative power of music, LALALOVE crafts journeys that invite dancers to explore the full spectrum of human emotion and movement. Her sets weave together a unique blend of global beats, heart-opening melodies, and juicy bass, creating spaces where freedom and expression flow effortlessly. Whether it’s a bass heavy beat or a gentle sway, her music resonates with dancers at every level, inspiring authentic connection to self, movement, and a sense of community on the dance floor.
Time to get JUICY!! 💜
DJ Exuberance
DJ Exuberance (Eric Severson) first fully felt the transcendant power of dance music when he was brought to Burning Man the summer after high school. His explosive enthusiasm on the dance floor found a natural home at Ecstatic Dance Oakland, where he has been a regular since 2012.
Now through DJing, he has found the fullest channel for spreading this infectious energy to the crowd. A dancer first and foremost, his sets are filled with tracks that inspire movement, ranging from melodic and emotive downtempo to funky and bassy midtempo to bouncy and euphoric highs. Described as “his own hype man”, he will be there dancing with you all, since he couldn’t stop if he tried.
Blindfolded Contact Dance is a safe and gentle experience—great for both beginners and experienced dancers alike. Wearing blindfolds allows dancers to drop the fear and self-judgment that often inhibits spontaneous movement and authentic connection to self and others.
This workshop/playshop will take participants on a journey of somatic self-discovery and non-verbal consent via solo and group exercises before culminating in a freeform blindfolded jam.
Testimonies:
“Most profound experience of my life. This is what the world needs now.”
“A beautiful exploration of touch, movement, and breath. A complete surrender into bliss.”
“This is a very powerful practice of feeling vulnerable whilst knowing that one is in a safe container. It is very healing.”
“I came into this as a shy person that never danced. The blindfold and the instructions made me comfortable to be myself.”
“Blindfolded contact may sound scary but it’s SO accessible and liberating. TRY!”
Candice Holdorf
Candice is a writer and coach with a focus on reclaiming erotic embodiment through exploring shame and shadow. She brings her passion for movement, play, and creative self-expression to her work as a group facilitator. She has trained in various healing modalities such as yoga and orgasmic meditation as well as studied Alexander Technique and theatrical movement while getting her BFA at NYU. theorgasmiclife.com
Gabriel Diamond
Gabriel is a long-time dancer who has practiced many modalities of conscious movement. He has developed a passion for exploring how blindfolds can be be used as a medicine and tool for transcending biases, cravings, and aversions. His work as an artist explores the intersection of activism, street theatre, shadow work, and embodiment. He is the co-founder of Vulnerable Rally. He is a filmmaker by trade with a background in theatre. outsidefilms.com
DJ Gina Longo
Gina has been DJing for fusion since 2012 and loves bringing lush soundscapes to the dance floor. Her wide ranging taste in music and experience with many dance styles allow her to adapt and respond to dancers’ energy.
As a long time participant in both the partnered dance and rope bondage scenes, she is excited to DJ for Everything Everywhere All At Dance!
DJ Maya Light
Maya Light is deeply enamored with the realm of creative expression, supporting others to access and explore the full range of this human experience. As an international DJ, she has adeptly honed the craft of weaving soundscapes for over 8 years, captivated by the tangible conversation she experienced on the dance floor.
She then delved into the art of curating intimate spaces, wholeheartedly embracing the transformative power of group fields as catalysts for unraveling and growth.
She also studied embodied anatomy at the School of Body Mind Centering, where she delved into a yin form of body work emphasizing safety and deep co-regulation, enriching her understanding of the interconnectedness of mind and body. Creating spaces to unlock and seamlessly integrate new pathways is her biggest passion.
www.MayaLight.com