ally yancey (they/she)
My history with movement has been diverse—I’ve spent my life studying and teaching a myriad of partnered and solo dance styles (not to mention roughhousing, bouldering, and river rock scrambling). I stumbled into contact with Contemporary Alexander Technique in a college modern dance class (thank you Linda K. Johnson) and was shook by how profoundly it transformed not just my practice, but how I fundamentally moved through the world as a human being. 14 years later and the discovery has only continued—slowly gifting me layers of deeper embodiment, personal agency, and magic in my life. I feel forever changed by this work.
Since completing the Contemporary Alexander School teacher training program, I have found myself drawn to deeply investigate the relationship between our capacity to release old patterning and the degree of safety our nervous system can access in any given moment. The importance of this relationship has driven me to continue studying the conditions of regulation and restoration, in hopes that I can contribute to the movement towards our collective wellness
My dream is to teach and collaborate with others also tending to the future in their own ways: culture shifters, activists, emergent strategists, artists, movers, researchers, queer community, teachers, and boundless others who are curious about how we as individuals relate to the world around us.
I am also a gender-fluid queer with ADHD who is only just now learning how to kind of keep plants alive.
The books by my bed are:
The Neurobiology of Connection (Natureza Gabriel)
Entangled Life (Merlin Sheldrake)
Sand Talk (Tyson Yunkaporta)
Emergent Strategy (adrienne marie brown)
Trauma Sensitive Movement (Manuela Mischke-Reedds)
Job’s Body (Deane Juhan)
Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)
The Pairing (Casey McQuiston)