About
ABOUT SUNITI:
I am a choreographer, performer and movement educator based in Portland, OR. For several years I collaborated with visual artist David Stein to make work under the name, bobbevy. Together we created 19 shorter works and seven evening-length shows: Leading Light (2015); This is how we disappear (2013); Palace of Crystal (2011); ill-starred (2009); Lawn of the Limp (2008); Avian Fable (2007); and Marionette (2004). I received my BFA in dance from UWM in 2003, where I had the opportunity to work with many talented choreographers including Zvi Gotheiner, Janet Lily, Heidi Latsky, Simone Ferro and Long Zhao. While in the Midwest, I was a company member of both Foothold Dance Performance and Wild Space Dance Company. I have performed with Oslund+Co, Fever Theater and Teeth. I have been presented by PICA’s TBA festival, Conduit Dance, Reed College Arts Week, Danceworks, Velocity Dance Center, Northwest New Works at On the Boards, Danspace, Ten Tiny Dances’ South Waterfront Project, Foothold Dance Performance, Starling Gallery, the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and Danspace in NYC. I have received several grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Dance New Work Award from UWM in 2009 as well as two residencies at Caldera Arts. I teach weekly yoga classes and retreats through The People’s Yoga in NE Portland.
ABOUT SUNITI'S TEACHING PRACTICE
My interest as a movement guide is to offer an embodied experience that respects each individual’s process. Through years of practice I am skilled at seeing bodies and directing attention to what is quiet or unanimated. When we strengthen our ability to pay attention we open up to more possibilities and we bring an experience into existence that did not previously exist. I view asana and all movement practice as creative research involving an open flow of information. We learn more about what we think we know and are in a constant state of surprise from all that we do not know.
I have been a student of dance, yoga and Buddhism for 20 years and I’ve been teaching since 2004. I teach a warm and generous style of movement that is influenced by my interest in contemporary and classical dance forms, Iyengar and Vinyasa yoga and mindfulness. I currently study with Michael Stone, Lama Padma Drimed Norbu, Wendy Hambidge and Todd Jackson. I bring my love of movement, fondness of detail and my own understanding of practice into my teaching.
THE WORK:
One of my greatest pleasures is to attend to bodies in motion while being open to an ongoing flow of information, questions and answers. My creation process involves research with collaborators and contributors from diverse backgrounds as well as highly physical improvisations. I am interested in active collaboration, which honors similarities and welcomes what is different. Gestural movements, spiraling torsos, visuals, relationships and stories developed in a project all serve to create cohesive contemporary contemplation's that serve the larger context of the work. I am engaged in deconstructing my own formulaic ways of working to be more honest and comfortable in what can’t be defined. I am committed to research, which exists in the body to include my own stories, memories and movement patterns while also being inclusive of a collective experience.
