photography by Laura Soriano

Nava Dance Collective

Nava dance collective is an international community of dancers devoted to cross-cultural dialogue and artistic collaboration through traditional, sacred, and ethno-contemporary dance forms. Under the direction of Miriam Peretz, dancers from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds collaborate in the creation of meaningful projects and performances. Dancers in the collective immerse in the unique movement language developed by Miriam Peretz, and also draw inspiration from other dancers in the collective.

Creating community among dancers is at the heart of the Nava collective. Beyond the importance of cultural preservation and technical precision is the basic need for people to come together and feel supported by a larger sense of community. Historically this has always been an important aspect of traditional dance forms. However, often times this is forgotten, and the dance floor becomes a place of competition, ego, and intimidation. The collective shares the belief that the dance space, our Dance Sanctuary, wherever it may be, should be a place for healing and transformation. It is the duty of all dancers to create this safe space for themselves and others.

Nava is a beautiful example of a word shared by the Hebrew, Farsi, and Turkish languages. In Farsi and Turkish Nava means sound or tune. It is also the name of one the main Dastgah (musical modes) in the Persian and Turkish Classical music traditions. In the Hebrew language, Nava means pleasant, graceful, beautiful and is a common girls’ name. Also, in Hindi, Nava means young or new.

Nava seeks to include dancers who are interested in strengthening their technical dance skills and using dance as a holistic practice for self–transformation, character refinement, and incorporating more gratitude and open-heartedness into their lives.

Read a beautiful article on Nava Dance Collective written by Heather Desaulniers for Dancers Group,

"Building Sisterhood Through Movement."   http://dancersgroup.org/2017/03/building-sisterhood-nava/