Contemporary Dance with Gabby R.

I began my dance career in 2005 learning lyrical and hip-hop dance in religious spaces. After performing and training in Florida, I began her own non-profit organization, Heartbeat of the Arts, teaching the arts to at-risk youth while simultaneously receiving a minor in dance focusing on Modern and West African dance. During my time at this non-profit, I saw how the children used dance to find healing, safety, and refuge from their constant changing world. After serving as the Founder and President of this organization, I moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a deeper dance training to better understand societal perceptions of the body and of movement. In LA, she trained with Athletic Garage Dance Center in the styles of ballet, salsa, hip-hop, and contemporary dance while also pursuing a master’s degree focusing on the Euro-American rejection of movement and the body to better understand how we can embrace and embody movement within our American culture. After obtaining my degree, I created my own company called Express & Release Therapeutic Dance which is a safe space for the community to accept their emotions, express them through movement, to then release them from the self. In my classes we will slow down. Pause. Consciously breathe. Feel our skin and move in ways that are not just routinized but are instead endlessly authentic. This type of movement has a special focus on exploring the emotions living in our bodies to ease stress, reduce anxiety and bridge the gap between our mind, our body, and our emotions in an embodied way. Allowing you to fully feel.