Leah Woods grew up studying West African Guinean, Flamenco, and Middle Eastern dance and continued on to study Ballet and Modern dance in College. She spent 11 years in the Bay Area studying Contemporary and Ballet intensively alongside the many global forms that thrive in that region. She enjoyed an extensive performance career dancing for Loose Change; an Urban Contemporary Dance Company, NAVA Collective and Ballet Afsaneh; Contemporary Central Asian Fusion Companies, Butoh projects with Bad Unkl Sistah, and as a solo Fusion artist. She is a Transnational Fusion dancer nationally, a hybrid form combining Hip Hop, Middle Eastern movement, Contemporary, and Africanist aesthetics.
She received her M.F.A. in Dance and Performance from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was the first Transnational Fusion MFA candidate at CU Boulder where she received her secondary emphasis in Somatics and a tertiary emphasis in Performance and Culture. She studied the Alexander technique, Body-Mind Centering, and the Franklin method alongside Gyrotonics.
She is a grateful student of Tom Weksler, Liav Memada, Miriam Peretz, Sadie Marquardt, Marlo Fisken, and Rachel Brice whenever she gets the chance to be in under their facilitation. They have each had a tremendous influence on her. She is a certified Gyrokinesis Trainer, a Gyrotonics Apprentice Teacher, a certified Datura Style Transnational Fusion Dance Teacher, and a RYT at the 300 hour level. She is continually adding to her education most recently by studying with Lucas at Range of Strenth, FRC with Traci Bennet, and with some upcoming PNF and Fighting Monkey courses.
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