A New Day, A New Dawn

Zoya Integration Center emerged from an accumulation of separate experiences with art education, embodied practices like Contact Improv, and mindfulness and meditation. At rare moments, these three fields converged, laying the foundation for the drive to create a system in which this intersection can flourish and be shared with others.

One early memory has consistently felt present and relevant, a guiding thread throughout my life. As a child, I lay for a long time in the snow on a gray day, looking up into the sky. Then, a sudden feeling of warmth and expansion filled my body. I saw myself as if looking down from above. There was a knowing of a shared connectedness.

As a young adult, I was performing a leading role and acting for the first time in a full-length play. Stage fright gripped me an hour before each performance, and to work through it, I moved my body intuitively, with a steady rhythm and breath sequence, creating what amounted to my own movement-based meditation.

At VCU, I was very lucky to study with Stephen Vitello, a renowned sound artist. He is also a deeply talented teacher, and his methods were a palpable experience of integrative arts education. To help us listen and discover sound, he brought us to a local arboretum, with shotgun mics and headphones in hand. We walked around for hours listening to the sounds of the natural space, mesmerized and awed by the richness of the sonic world that we often take for granted. A flock of geese flew overhead, and as I pointed my mic in their direction, the swooshing sound of their wings flapping in unison evoked that feeling of the early memory I still carry with me.

The past ten years, I spent working in buildings that housed community art education, of both visual and performing arts. This time has exposed me to an overwhelming amount of evidence that art and creativity are a vital force for many people. The deep focus and attention, the self-discovery, the somatic nature found in almost all creative media, and the shared community that you find in these classrooms are undeniable. Art, at its core, is an integrative experience, and that is why it is so powerful. Articulating and guiding our students to connect their bodies and attune their attention through contemplative practice while studying the arts will only help them to arrive at this realization sooner.

So today is a new dawn, one in which Zoya emerges from the belief that creativity, embodiment, and contemplation are not separate practices but deeply connected ways of learning how to be human together. Stay tuned as we explore the potential of this philosophy on our journey to carry our mission forward.