Classes — dana iova-koga

Workshops, classes & offerings

Private Sessions

Ongoing
Live or Online

A collaborative process of addressing your individual movement needs and interests

In a private session I first work with you to determine what kind of movement tools you want to develop. From there I craft something catered to your specific needs, level of experience and life context. Together we address universally applicable principles of balance, dynamic alignment, coordination, strength, mobility, rhythm, adaptability, resiliency and resourcefulness.

My goal is to support you in enriching your movement life and refining your physical attunement.

I have depth of experience in a wide diversity of sources including the Chinese Internal Arts such as Qigong and Yang Sheng Gong (practice for good living), Butoh dance, Improvisational dance and theater, Fighting Monkey, MovNat, the Axis Syllabus and Nutritious Movement. You can read more about some of my primary movement sources HERE.

The cost of a private session is $75-120 an hour, sliding scale. Please reach out with questions or schedule a free consultation call.

Elemental Vessel

Wayfinding + Shapeshifting Immersion

November 2024 - September 2025
Online

With Frieda Kipar Bay
a periodic and in-depth investigation into the artistry of change

Join us in engaging the practice of restoring relationship.
“Relationality is something that you can only learn from the land. The first relation is between land and people, and the second relation is between people and people. The second is contingent on the first.” — Tyson Yunkaporta
The Elemental Vessel Immersion is a yearlong investigation in wayfinding and shapeshifting with Dana Iova-Koga and Frieda Kipar Bay. In this offering we will take you through a multi-layered inquiry of what it means to be a shapeshifter and how to wayfind with grace and clarity. Using the pathways of movement, plant medicine, and cognitive/creative tracking, we will hone our awareness of ourselves, others, and the environment. We have come to call these interlacement practices. We will be looking at how we can turn these inherent abilities into artistry, and how doing so supports our health, creativity, problem solving, communication, and fulfillment of Life. These practices make us better humans, and effect all of our relations.

bow, listen, rejoice, imagine, create, discern, grieve, integrate
This yearlong immersion meets on the 8 significant points on the wheel of time (from the Daoist, Baltic, Celtic traditions, among many others), and uses the relevant cultural wisdom at each point as our guide. We meet every 6 weeks, convening from around the globe to practice a different orientation to time. It is circular, we are spinning...
We will investigate:
- Modeling our self-cultivation practices upon universal principles of biological life
- How tinkering with our human movement is a relational and political act
- Taoist practices/ indigenous wisdom of cycling, systems, and the circularity of our experience
- Qigong/Dao Yin practices
- Reading a landscape and tracking its inhabitants
- The meaning and metaphor of dance in its broadest definition
- Engaging with the plants and their medicine of your bio region
Is this for you?
This course is for anyone who is at a crossroads - in location, livelihood, family, or personal health -
interested in cultivating robust creativity in the face of change.
In this time on the planet, much is in a state of extreme evolution. We are not excluded in this volatile weather - what occurs externally is also occurring internally. Learning to adapt, creatively and with joy, is the work of this time, both individually and collectively. In order to align with the bigger planetary transformations, our capacity to transform must be deep and wide. Bring your uncertainty, vulnerable questions, and creativity to investigate the practices of navigating change for self-cultivation and collective well-being.
“We are not self-contained individuals confronting a world out there, but developing organisms in an environment, enmeshed in tangled relationships. As we move through space, our knowledge under-goes continuous formulation." — m.r. o’connor
DETAILS:
- November 2024 - September 2025
- 8 weekend intensives meet Saturday + Sunday for 3 hours via Zoom
- Join for the whole immersion or individual weekends
- Supplemental content + prompts are provided for integration outside of class.
- Registering for the full year Includes a private session with both myself and Frieda (a $250 value!)
During this immersion, you can expect to deepen creatively, be tracked by a wide yet intimate community, find inspiration to arrive where you belong fully, and expand your resourcefulness to respond to the changing weather of your life.
DATES AND REGISTRATION HERE, ON FRIEDA’S WEBSITE
Elemental Vessel is a body of work and offerings in collaboration with Frieda Kipar Bay. Learn more at elementalvessel.org

Dancing the Landscape

August 30-September 2, 2024
at the historic Earthdance venue, Massachusetts

With Frieda Kipar Bay
An expansive inquiry of how to relate to the ecologies on either side of the skin

We reside in a living world shaped by reciprocity. Nature responds to every single thing we do. In this 4-day, immersive workshop, we will center these deep connections between how we move and how we relate to the ecologies we are a part of. We will begin by asking “how do we dance a landscape?”, and "how are we being danced by our landscapes?" Investigations will occur inside the studio and out, in the beautiful weather of late summer, and we will draw from several primary sources as inspiration.

We will practice:
Qigong to attune our listening and understand the fractals at play.
Dynamic and rigorous Body Weather crossings to challenge our memory, proprioception and coordination.
Improvisational movement scores to play with universal movement principles.
Contact Improvisation to deepen our understanding of physical reciprocity.
Tracking and plant ID walks on Earthdance to meet the landscape with deeper understanding.
Garden work in the ED Garden to practice integrating theory into practical application (while participating and contributing to the ED community)

In recent years, much attention has been paid to the practices of Mindfulness and Embodiment and they are widely accepted as being beneficial in our aspirations of being vibrant, compassionate, responsive human beings. But what about the practice of relating to our environments and landscapes with attention and reciprocity? While equally as vital, it has not yet entered the mainstream consciousness to the same degree. We will investigate this relationship with place - emplacefulment; it’s not a word, but it’s what we’ll be practicing anyway.

Frieda is a clinical herbalist, mother, writer, activist. More about Frieda
Go HERE for more information including sliding scale pricing and to REGISTER.
Elemental Vessel is a body of work and offerings in collaboration with Frieda Kipar Bay. Learn more at elementalvessel.org

Dance on Land

upcoming dates TBA

Taught with Shinichi Iova-Koga since 2006
an intensive movement workshop in the wild

Very close to my heart is Dance on Land, which I have taught with my partner Shinichi since 2006.
DOL is an intensive movement workshop that takes place in nature and encourages deep listening to the surroundings. By immersing ourselves in diverse environments- forests, river, ocean and field, we study both the patterns inherent in these landscapes as well as the responses moving through our bodies.
Paired with the explorations in the environment are sessions in the studio, where we cultivate our sensorial mind and creative responsiveness through rigorous physical and improvisational training rooted in Noguchi Taiso, Body Weather Training, Dao Yin, Action Theater, Yang Shen Gong and Qigong exercises.
Dance on Land is most frequently taught in Northern California but has been offered in various places around the world.
To inquire about hosting a Dance on Land event, please reach out.