Guest Profile
Zahava Griss
Z (aka Zahava Griss, pronouns: they/them) is the founder of Embody More Love, a spiritual kinky community for personal and cultural liberation. Z’s path as a dancer started at age 2, and has included ballet, modern, west african, middle eastern, Sufi dancemeditation, burlesque and contact improv. Z has had the honor of dancing with many legendary dancers and choreographers including the Joffrey Ballet, Katherine Dunham, Urban Bush Women, Baba Chuck Davis, training at the Juilliard School, Tisch School of the Arts, North Carolina School of the Arts, the Alvin Ailey School, the Princeton Ballet, Sarah Lawrence College, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Oh!ni Sowa (Ghana), and Marie Basse Wiles (Senegal.) Through this international dance education Z learned how differently cultures define what dance is, as well as community, sexuality, soul, and our relationship with the Earth.
Z is certified in Yoga for Birth, Esalen Massage, Deep Bodywork, Urban Tantra, Pilates, and Health Coaching. Z is a coach and trainer with the Academy for Coaching Excellence. Z is an organizer and core teacher for the international festival Touch&Play as well as a touring performance artist and author. Powerful influences include Sobonfu Some's Grief Rituals, Sufi whirling, and Sexual Shamanism with Sun Dancer, Kenneth Ray Stubbs. Z directed Spiritual Nourishment for Conscious Activism in collaboration with Deepak Chopra and has been listening to, speaking in, and facilitating spaces to acknowledge and transform white privilege since 1999, including work with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, Sarah Lawrence College, the Re-Evaluating Counseling community, the national White Privilege Conference, and co-organizing the White Privilege Symposium. Z co-founded White Folks Soul, By Any Dance Necessary, a dance company exploring the incompatibility of wholeness and the race construct for white people.
