DANCE YOUR MEDICINE is a multi-day, eco luxury retreat about evolving our consciousness, nourishing and healing ourselves through somatics, movement and community. Together, for 7 days and 7 nights, we will imbibe pristine nature and food, dance to luscious music, deepen into embodied connection, and learn how to harness it for creating good in the world.
WHY DYM?
In the plodding along of the day to day, we’ve become woefully disconnected. In the act of trying to “get ahead”, we’ve lost track of our own enoughness. We’re either stuck in the past with feelings of shame, guilt and trauma, or we’re stuck future-tripping, worrying and anxious about the disappointments that MIGHT happen and the outcomes we can’t control.
Using dance as your medicine can offer you a sense of flow, vitality, freedom and connection with ALL of yourself, the people you love and the planet that allows us to live life to the fullest as our natural birthright.
This is definitely the most robust healing and wellness Cocréa retreat yet and I’m so honored and excited to be working with this team of humans to bring it to you. We’re going to go deep and have fun in the process. You’re going to emerge with some super charged skills for self care and resilience.
I can’t wait to dance with you in the pristine jungle of Costa Rica!
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Is Dance Your Medicine the right fit for you in this time of great change?
Schedule a discovery call with one of the Co-Leaders of Dance Your Medicine.
Schedule a call with Cocréa founder and Co-Lead Facilitator, Wren LaFeet, and see how Cocréa can support you in remembering the wisdom of the body and reconnecting with others in the spirit of change.
Schedule your discovery session with Wren
Schedule a call with Co-Lead Facilitator and Trauma-Informed Somatic Educator, Odessa Avianna Perez.
Schedule your discovery session with Odessa
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There is so much to tend to.
The world is uncertain, chaotic, and mysterious, especially these days. In a capitalistic culture, joy, rest, and rejuvenation are radical acts. They build our resilience to face the road ahead.
We unplug in order to recharge.
We commune with nature in order to remember who we are.
We come to listen to our bodies’ wisdom.
We come to effect change from the inside out.
We gather to learn a better way in community.
We gather to heal our hyperindividualism and codependence, and learn interdependence.
We come to Celebrate.
to Feel.
to Be Danced.
LISTEN
EMBODY
CONNECT
COCREATE
EMBODIMENT is the practice we invite you to cultivate; an ongoing mindful dialogue between mind and body, a deepening wisdom of yourself, a reckoning in present time of how your body moves through the world. We cultivate embodiment so that we may be in deeper connection with ourselves, each other, and all that is.
SHIFT YOUR PARADIGM into a full embrace of what enlivens and sustains you. Discover how living in acceptance and curiosity of your body, your boundaries, needs and desires – and how honoring that in others – gives way to a radiant, thriving life.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT of conscious dance infusing the world with mindful connection and the joy of being alive. Adventure with Cocréa’s brilliant team of facilitators as they masterfully weave the themes of consent, embodied wisdom, emotional intelligence, collective liberation and right relationship through the mediums of movement, somatics, music, breath and touch.
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The Retreat Space – POSADA NATURA
Release and let go into the full embrace of Posada Natura. Posada Natura is a gathering center located on the southern pacific coast of Costa Rica. They host retreats, conferences and programs with focus on wellness, education, social change and environmental conservation
The space provides a container to connect people to the powerful rejuvenating energy of an ancient rainforest, and wholesome wellness experiences. Their team is comprised of leaders in the fields of holistic health, spiritual practice, and environmental conservation.
Seated above one of the cleanest rivers left on earth, Rio Naranjo, and surrounded by over 7,500 acres of rainforest that their partner 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Eco Era, has protected since 1991, Posada Natura is a pristine container to explore what being in right relationship with the planet can feel like.
Come as you are.
Leave as you want to be.
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MEALS
We believe that food is healing. We source all of our produce from local, organic farms to create fresh, plant-based meals for every retreat. We believe in nourishing the human body with nutrient dense, fresh ingredients cooked by our incredible chef
As part of Dance Your Medicine you’ll enjoy:
- 3 organic , nutrition-focused meals daily
- Tea, coffee and snacks available throughout the day
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RETREAT FEATURES
Fusion Partner Dance Technique Classes
Contact Improvisation
Restorative and Goddess Flow Yoga
Ecstatic Access Movement Classes
Trauma-Informed Somatic Education
Dance Parties with Stellar DJs
Meditation
Epic Jungle Waterfall Trip
Outdoor Pool
Riverside Retreat Space
All Organic, Vegetarian Meals
BIPOC & LGBTQIA Affinity Gathering Opportunities
Local Cacao Fueled Dance Parties
Love • And MORE!
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ARE YOU:
- Longing for more connection and expression with your body?
- Ready to come back into your aliveness perhaps forgotten in the midst of the uncertainty and fear of COVID?
- Choosing to value closeness and intimacy with others and desire more skills to create that in your life?
- Desiring to celebrate community, nature and new experiences in new places that bring you enrichment and vitality?
- Passionate about eating well, feeling good, walking barefoot and sharing what brings you into your full, vibrant health with others?
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BECOME CONSCIOUS to the Freedom and Intimacy available to you by standing in the Presence and the Majesty you are. Elevating awareness by being wildly authentic in your expression as you also witness the same in another.
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FACILITATORS
WREN LAFEET
Lead Facilitator, Music Facilitator and Cocréa co-Founder
A dancer in the Fusion social partner dance movement since it began, Wren’s dancing largely defines fusion as an emergent aesthetic dance form. Fueled by his curiosity in spirituality, the body, global community, the natural world and relationships, and guided by his devotion to love and the idea of the Beloved, partner dance has served as the vehicle for his inquiry and understanding. He has inspired the formation of multiple fusion dance communities on the west coast of North America, and teaches partner dance internationally as a practice for mindful, authentic living, enlivening communities with his signature modality, Cocréa. His facilitation encourages individuals to create themselves as safer spaces for the embodiment of the full range of human expression. Promoting dance as medicine, spirituality and salve for our modern ailments of disconnection and alienation, his practice insists we trust our bodies with the music and our partner to catalyze elevating our whole being into higher vibrational states.
ODESSA AVIANNA PEREZ
Guest Facilitator and Trauma-Informed Somatic Educator
Odessa Avianna Perez is a trauma-informed somatic educator, embodiment and social justice educator who helps individuals and groups heal from fragmentation and remember agency, magic, and belonging.
Odessa is a cis gender, able-bodied, biracial white-presenting latina currently residing in Tongva territory – aka Los Angeles, CA. She holds an MA in Somatic Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies and triple bachelor degrees in Dance, Theater Arts, and Sociology from Rutgers University. She is a ThetaHealing practitioner and instructor, and has a background in massage and bodywork. She has over 2 decades of movement and dance performance experience, and has been practicing and teaching Contact Improvisation as a form of self inquiry and relationship alchemy for over ten years.
Odessa is deeply curious about the intersection of personal and collective trauma, collective nervous system states and expression, and how we can use somatics and dance to integrate our trauma for better relationship, community and planet. She has facilitated workshops at dozens of retreats and festivals using somatics, movement, and contact improvisation as the platform through which to explore safety, relationship, building capacity for discomfort, interdependence and inclusion.
In her psychotherapeutic private practice, she weaves somatics, movement, interpersonal neurobiology, polyvagal theory, attachment work, and social and racial justice frameworks. She is part of the Healer’s Collective for the Decolonizing Wealth Project, and the Inclusion and Belonging co-lead for SoulPlay festivals.
NATASHA RICHARDS
Meditation, Kambo Healing and Yoga Facilitator
A forever student, Natasha continues to allow her spiritual practice to flow and change shapes as her life does. Her most recent experiences have introduced Kambo and Breathwork into her life in powerful ways. In January 2022 as the world seemingly stood still she followed the call to complete her Kambo Practitioners Training through the Rainforest Healing Center. Natasha’s yoga journey has included Meditation, Hatha, Vinyasa, Yin and Goddess flow certifications spanning 8 years. Through this combination of yoga, intentional breathing, intuitive dance, circular movement and ceremony she aims to tap into and help process moments of realization, newness and emotional breakthroughs. She incorporates traditional and non-traditional ideas and music into her classes while remaining present and flowing and honouring the individuals she leads.
YOZEF LUZ
Guest Facilitator, Music Facilitator and DJ
Yozéf is a student and explorer of movement in all its forms. As a meditator, the basis of his exploration is awareness and inner silence. He has studied Hatha, Raja, Anusara and Ashtanga Yoga and has had a profound approach to Kundalini Yoga which has led him to understand the energetic body in his personal yoga practice spanning 14 years. He has also practiced other movement disciplines such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Contact Dance, Contemporary Dance and has received a certified immersion in Dance Therapy.
His path has led him to found Beyond Dance, an offering born from his heart that today has become a true local community that flourishes through the medicine of dance and music. Beyond Dance is an experience that is infused with his charisma and passion for movement and brings together and integrates all of his knowledge through breathing exercises, energy circle activations, meditation and a ceremonial environment essential to create a complete experience of physical, mental and emotional release on the dance floor.
Today he is considered the main Costa Rican precursor and promoter of this movement in the country and has given life to a multitude of ecstatic dances around the country and has participated as a Dj in Ecstatic Dance Paris and as a facilitator of Beyond Dance in Naples, Italy in 2020 and had the opportunity to be a facilitator of Movement and Ecstatic Dance in the Green Residencies of Momentom Collective in Macaw Lodge, Costa Rica in 2021 and 2022.
NAOBA
Guest Facilitator, Music Facilitator and DJ
Tamara Montenegro, aka NAOBA, creates spaces of deep resonance that facilitate the connection to inner world, each other and the Planet through intentionally crafted music journeys and theatrical therapy.
Her musical and somatic offering draws knowledge from ancient frequencies and instrumentation, mesoamerican shamanism and earth-rooted spiritual practices.
She innerstands the urgency of a person’s soul initiation into community and the psychospiritual connection to grief, breakthroughs, pain and estrangement, and serves to create spaces of safe exploration of our bodies and minds through somatic dance and a deep research on psychoacoustic and neuroacoustic work.
Her unique background in both academic and extensive life experiences in community building and individual psychosomatic research brings the unique approach to music and sound healing that her sessions are known for.
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INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND RESPONSIBILITY
If you would like, we have an option to make a one time, $100 donation in addition to your event registration fee.
For every $100 donation received from participants, Cocréa will match it with an additional $100. This ensures that we can cover the cost of food for a local Costa Rican desiring to attend, and offer our program to them on a pay-what-you-can basis.
By living – simply being alive – in a time of such change while holding systemic, global privilege, we at Cocréa believe that we have a responsibility to leverage that power to do good things.
Our time here is finite. As such, part of the way we desire to leverage our power is by providing access to our programming at minimal cost to those for whom the cost of an event would be prohibitive.
Everyone deserves to have a good time dancing with others, no matter what culture you were born into.
We also believe in ending systemic oppression which is why 1% of all our year end profits go to Color of Change, and 1% of THIS event will go to the Found Nation to assist in their continuing work of enriching the lives of the indigenous Costa Rican people, the BriBri.
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DETAILS
We are creating space for 1 Non-Costa Rican BIPOC scholarship participant, and 1 Tico participant.
Our BIPOC Scholarship is intended to support access for this event in the context of historical and present day systemic inequities that disadvantage people of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and mixed-race heritage.
View BIPOC Scholarship Application on our Website:
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1-ON-1 ADD-ON SESSION OFFER DETAILS
There are a limited number of supportive private session offerings available as an optional add-on to your DYM experience. Each of these one-on-one sessions are designed to enhance your retreat experience. We’re dedicated to bringing embodied healing and intelligence to you, our valued community. Select yours at checkout, limit 1 add-on session per participant.
- 90-minute private Yin with Indian Scalp Massage session during the retreat with RYT Natasha Richards. Natasha will gently guide you as you discover a more intimate view of YOUR practice and soothe your nervous system while helping to release tension and relieve muscle stiffness.
- 75-minute post-retreat private integration session with trauma-informed somatic educator Odessa Perez. This session will be carried out online via zoom and must be booked by the end of the retreat for a date between April 1 and April 14, 2023. Odessa will help you ground and integrate the potency of your experience into your everyday life, with a post-retreat private somatic coaching session.
- 60-minute personal dance session with Wren during the retreat to refine specific development areas OR a 60-minute Attunement Therapy session to support healing. Wren will support you in developing your body’s unique expression, unblocking pathways to creativity, and opening into greater access to your body’s wisdom.
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COVID POLICY
We currently will require everyone who attends the event to provide a negative COVID test within 72 hours of ARRIVING AT POSADA NATURA.
If you are taking a shuttle to Posada Natura it is suggested that you take an antigen test in the presence of another participant before boarding your shuttle or taking your test on arrival to Posada Natura with a member of the DYM facilitation team, before checking in.
We desire to hold the safety of both our attendees and our host country in the highest degree possible and as required of us by the venue.
In the instance that Cocrea needs to cancel the event, 100% of your ticket will be credited for a future Dance Your Medicine retreat to be announced.
We reserve the right to change this policy as conditions and circumstances around world health change.