Series info: Join Dancing Earth Bay Area's Eco Artivism Cohort for our Fall Workshop series!

Second Saturdays, 11am-1pm, from September-December

9/12 - outdoor location TBA

10/10 - outdoor location TBA

11/14 - Wildcat Studio, Berkeley

12/12 - Wildcat Studio, Berkeley

eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1998131429895?aff=oddtdtcreator

Sliding scale $15-50 per workshop, $60-200 for the series; we invite you to pay to your ability -- NOTAFLOF (no one turned away for lack of funds).

Series description: This series offers embodied explorations of ecological concepts as portals into the intuitive wisdom of our own bodies and lineages. In this intuitive wisdom, we seek to deepen into those places of softening where we can find interconnection between ourselves, the Earth, and each other. These explorations will center on guided improvisational dance, and will be offered with entry points for movers of all experience levels, abilities, and movement histories – we welcome you as you are! Stay tuned for more details on the themes of each workshop.

About Eco Artivism: We are a group of dance artists based on unceded Ohlone territory in the Bay Area, committed to movement-based performance, ritual, and practice as a means of building collective liberation and care for the Earth and all beings. As an interracial, intercultural group, many of us bearing mixed lineages, we value the diverse interweaving of our heritages, practices, and movement histories as a mirror of healthy biodiversity found in thriving ecosystems.


Our work grounds itself in the embodiment of Earth wisdom, ancestral wisdom, and imaginative wisdom, growing from our study with Dancing Earth's Founding Artistic Director, Rulan Tangen, in her eco-somatic movement practices and teaching methods. We understand this work of restoring our sacred, embodied relationship to the Earth as a core part of the cultural transformation required for the end to settler colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy.

  • Eco Artivism Teaching Artist, Taraneh Sarrafzadeh

  • Taraneh was born and raised across Ohlone lands, known as the Bay Area, CA, with cultural and ancestral rivers confluencing from Iran, Philippines, and China, currently in Vallejo, CA. She is a collaborating artist and community impact producer/administrator with Dancing Earth Creations, having recently produced and participated in DE’s international 2024 Eco Elegies Mexico tour and residency. In 2023, Taraneh was named a Mosaic America Fellow for technical excellence and dedication to intercultural bridge building in the fields of dance and community wellness activation. She has also been awarded 2019 Multicultural Arts Leadership Fellowship with the MHP School of Arts and Culture, and a 2017 National Art Strategies Creative Community Fellow. 

  • Taraneh owned/directed a donation-based yoga studio and non-profit called Be the Change Collective focused on making wellness practices accessible in San Jose from 2014-2020. During this time of community leadership she led trauma-informed wellness programs in juvenile hall, social service centers, schools, and in partnership with the City of San Jose’s parks, profoundly deepening her understanding of collective power & care in this period of service. With a BA in Environmental Studies and minor in Global Peace & Security from UCSB, Taraneh is a lifelong student of embodiment as a path to reclaim, heal, remember, and reimagine our way back to ourselves and to ways of being (individually and collectively) that are restorative, transformative, and liberatory for ourselves and how we live our human potential on this planet.

  • Eco Artivism Teaching Artist, Emma Quan Dewey

  • Emma is a Bay Area-raised dancer and choreographer putting down roots in Lisjan Ohlone lands (Oakland). Emma’s work moves from the body as a way of knowing — knowing power structures, identity, relation, healing, freedom, place — and from performance as a ritual portal that softens us into other forms of attention and being. Ongoing inquiries include ecological entanglement, the slippery place between language and dance, and the embodied afterlives of US empire in her Chinese and white lineage. Emma holds a BA in Dance & Anthropology from Bowdoin College and is a 2023 Emerging Artist in Residence at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. Their work has been shown at the School for Contemporary Dance & Thought, Dance Mission Theater, and SADC. They are a collaborating artist and member of the Eco Elegies cast and Eco Artivism cohort with Dancing Earth.

  • Eco Artivism Teaching Artist , Nabra Nelson


  • Nabra Nelson is a community organizer, EDI consultant, educator, and theatre creator from Egypt, Nubia, and California. Her Nubian side is from the Fadijja tribe of the village of Abu Simbel in Egypt. As an administrator, playwright, consultant, teaching artist, and Artistic Director of Golden Thread Productions, she works with theaters, universities, non-profits, corporations, and community organizations across the nation to create positive change, strengthen community, and amplify under-heard voices.

    As an independent theatre-based consultant specializing in Theatre of the Oppressed, she has worked with Sankofa Impact, Leadership Tomorrow, Creative Advantage, Northwest Folk Life, Northwest Maritime Center, Inspire Washington, Seattle Rep, Seattle Arts & Culture for Anti-Racism, Young Women Empowered, and UCSB.

  • Eco Artivism Teach Artist, Ronice Stratton

  • Ronice lives on unceded Ohlone land in Oakland, CA. Dance has become her highest expression—releasing what she holds within, in connection with others and the Earth that holds her. Part of that work includes Ronice's exploration of her Honduran identity, digging up its pain & joy, and finding lost lines through her dance. Ro is a collaborating artist and member of the Eco Elegies cast and Eco Artivism cohort with Dancing Earth.