About

Moving Joy Studios is an organization that creates connections within and between people, communities, organizations, and cultures. We encourage people to move and feel through interdisciplinary experiences and performances. Using the fundamental experience of movement, we address the widespread cultural and global issues of dis-integration, dis-connectedness, and dis-ease.

MISSION: What we do

• Create a safe, stunningly beautiful space for movement, dance, and performance
• Expose people to high quality dance technique, informed and excellent teaching, and the joy of dance through private lessons and group classes
  
• Create & facilitate movement-centered workshops for the community
• Collaborate with artists, scientists, and other professionals to bring thought-provoking, visually striking performances to audiences
• Provide a wide range of excellent dance and movement teachers to serve the local, regional, national and global population
• Offer one-on-one movement sessions in stretching, self-care, dance, and massage therapy

VISION: Why we do it

Moving Joy Studios is founded on the following beliefs:

• Creativity is available to everyone
• Movement is life
• Dance connects people on the human level
• Education about the body helps integrate life
• Open creativity, moving the body with confidence, connecting to others, and knowledge increase personal power

Moving Joy Studios is motivated by the following values:

• Creativity: in artistic collaboration, use of resources, and solvent business practices
• Excellence: in artistry, skill, and education
• Respect & cooperation: in our interactions with clients, collaborators, and each other
• Delight: our clients and collaborators leave each interaction with a positive emotional response
• Service to society: solving significant social problems

We operate all of this from a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

About Director Maren Waldman

Dance Training & Experience

I have a lifetime of training in dance, including tap, jazz, modern, swing, and salsa. I studied modern dance intensively at the Limon Institute in NYC and danced professionally with Adrienne Celeste Fadjo Dance. I have also studied choreography and community with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, modern-jazz in the Simonson technique, and anatomy with Irene Dowd and Andrea Olsen. My swing dance career began in 1998 – and hasn't stopped. East Coast and West Coast Swing are her specialties.  I competed in national competitions in west coast swing, have taught swing to teens through seniors in schools, community centers, and at Sandra Cameron Dance Center in NYC.

I have performed in NYC, Rochester, Ithaca, San Francisco, and England. My choreography of solo and ensemble works for stage and for specific sites include Rochester’s ArtWalk, Art in the Heart public sculptures on the Ithaca Commons, and Ithaca's annual festival of art and science, Light in Winter.

Collaborating is my favorite way to create.  Collaborations include projects with musicians, visual artists, and scientists. Dance of Scales, my most recent collaboration with Redshift Productions and Cornell physicist Itai Cohen, explores an obsession with movement on different size scales.

I teach modern dance, swing dance, and workshops in dance, anatomy, movement & writing, and stress management.           

I am available for hire for group or private dance lessons, workshops, and performance collaborations.  My work focuses on community and relationships – relationships between people, negotiations inside of oneself, relationships between people and their physical environment. Drawing on my degree in anthropology, my work reflects a perspective on humans on life seen through any or all of the following artistic lenses: critical, celebratory, analytical, questioning, emotional.

Massage Therapy Training & Experience

I am a NYS Licensed and Nationally Certified Massage Therapist. I graduated in 2006 from the Finger Lakes School of Massage in Ithaca, NY, a 1000-hour program. Subsequent training includes Shiatsu, Cranial-sacral Therapy, Reiki and anatomy. My treatment sessions integrate therapeutic massage, movement, and stretching, drawing on her years of training and experience in modern dance, yoga, and therapeutic massage. I offer table massage, Shiatsu/acupressure (floor work), and personalized targeted stretching for pain relief, flexibility, and relaxation. I focus on stress reduction especially in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain, headaches, exhaustion, and high levels of general anxiety. My treatments also address performance enhancement for dancers and other performing artists. I create a safe, comfortable environment that provides an opportunity for rest, re-balancing, and renewed health, and learning.

I have worked collaboratively with both Abigail Thomas-Costello, Acupuncturist, and Dr. Maria Budner-Gentry, Osteopath, in treating more complex conditions such as chronic pain and Dystonia.