MATRA MOVEMENT is a healing movement practice that I have developed - it is a South Asian American somatic practice. It is a response to the white supremacist culture I grew up in - a response to feeling unrooted, unseen and disconnected from the culture around me and subsequently my own body. It is the result of my search for cultural roots, belonging, and health. MATRA MOVEMENT engages the traditional shapes, steps and mudras from the Indian classical dance Odissi as therapeutic healing tools to explore and create an inner landscape. We look at the performative as yogic, the ornamental as utilitarian and the breath as bejeweled. One of the meanings of the word MATRA is beat in classical Indian music. MATRA also contains the root for the word mother in both Latin and Sanskrit. I think of it as the heartbeat of the Divine Mother. Through movement and breath we will align with her rhythm, warmth and protection.

No matter our background, empire and colonization affects the way we move our bodies and how we feel in our bodies. Mirroring that on a more positive and hopeful note - I believe the body and the dancing body is endlessly innovative and we can create new political futures and unlock liberatory realities through movement. We can envision a decolonized future - not in a cerebral way - but in an embodied way. We can ask what would a decolonized world feel like in my body? Can I close my eyes and imagine it? What would my hands be doing there, how would my breath come out and back into my lungs there? What dance moves would I make?

I teach online and in person individual and group classes. Contact me if you would like to participate in a class or schedule an individual session.

Bio: Megha is a performance artist and movement educator. Megha completed her Hatha Yoga teacher certification with Alison West of Yoga Union and Restorative/Yoga Nidra training with Mona Anand of Ishta Yoga. She continues ongoing studies of the Indian classical dance Odissi with Mala Desai. In addition to yoga and dance, she has explored various healing movement modalities including Continuum Movement Therapy with Emilie Conrad, Anna Halprin’s Creative Embodiment and Thomas Hanna’s Somatic Processing, taught by Lisa Sack. Her solo performance work and work with the art collective Yemenwed has been performed and exhibited at MoMA, MoMA PS1, Perez Art Museum Miami, Hessel Art Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Pioneer Works, Algus Greenspon Gallery, and PERFORMA. Megha has taught movement workshops through Performance Space NY, Brooklyn Flow, Mountain Holistic Center, ONTOPO, and Second Saturday Movement Practice at the Stinson Beach Community Center.

Photo by Randy Stulberg