Sarah Sadie
Madison, Wisconsin
http://www.odonatacreative.com
I teach Sunday afternoons at Dance Life Studio in Madison, WI. Classes are $10 at the door. You can find more information at www.madisondancelife.com. I'd love to see you soon!
Sarah Sadie is the founder/owner of Odonata Creative. She's a certified Kaizen-Muse Creativity Master Coach and former Poet Laureate of Madison Wisconsin, where she lives with her family. Through workshops, classes, and 1:1 guided conversations, she helps women and men discover, recover or uncover their life passion and purpose through nonlinear experiences and small steps. Her poems have been published widely in journals and magazines and she has two full-length collections. Dancing Qoya informs these other works at every level.
When did you take your first Qoya class? There was no in-person class in my area when I discovered Qoya online in 2016. A friend sent me the link to the website and said, "You should know about this." She was right! I danced through the online classes, then immediately dove into the Intro to Teacher Training. Qoya for me was like coming home to myself, from the very first. That sense of homecoming has only deepened.
What does it mean for you to teach Qoya? Teaching Qoya is a profound invitation for me, in each class, to step into a deeper relationship with a lineage of women who were and are wise, wild, and free in their lives and life expression. Holding space for other women to experience Qoya, to learn to trust the structure of the class even as they also learn (again) to trust their body's wisdom, is such a deep honor. We are doing healing work as we circle together. We are doing celebratory work as we "slow down to feel more." We are birthing and dancing love into the world. We are Qoya.
What is your favorite song to dance to right now? It would have to be a tie between MC Yogi's “Heaven Is Here” and Joy Williams’ “Woman (Oh Mama)” and Shylah Ray Sunshine's “Existence.” Such different energies but they all take me to an absolutely ecstatic place.
What book has inspired you on the path to embodying the feminine? Kathleen Noble's Sound of a Silver Horn. Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Women Who Run with the Wolves. More recently, Regena Thomashauer's Pussy: A Reclamation.
What would you tell someone who is thinking of taking a Qoya class for the first time? You will be so welcome, no matter your history of dance classes, no matter if you can nail a yoga pose (I can't), no matter where you are in your life. One of the participants in a recent class said "Qoya is self-care." I totally agree.
Oh, and I cover the mirrors completely. It's all about how it feels, not how it looks.