SOUL
SOMATIC DANCE TRAINING
· Level 3 · New Zealand ·
25 November to 5 December 2026
Kauaeranga Forest Education Camp
Kauaeranga Valley · Coromandel · Aotearoa New Zealand
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Level 3 takes us beyond the individual self and into our relationship with the greater web of life.
We slow down.
We listen.
We explore what it means to belong. To ourselves, to one another, to the land and to the great cycles of life.
Through Eros, Ritual, Energetics and Ecosomatics, we deepen our capacity not only to hold transformative dance spaces, but to live, lead and speak from a more embodied relationship with Soul.
No one is here by accident. Each one of us was sent here for a special destiny.
- John O’Donahue
This training is for you if:
You have completed Somatic Dance Levels 1 and 2, or have equivalent experience.
You are ready to explore your relationship with Soul, land and the greater web of life.
You are ready to explore your relationship with Soul, land and the greater web of life.
You want to work skilfully with Eros, ritual, energetics and the unseen.
You want to deepen your capacity to hold ecosomatic spaces of belonging and connection.
You are willing to slow down, listen deeply and make space for emergence and the unknown.
Level 3 is for facilitators ready to hold Eros, mystery, emergence and belonging.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.
- Mary Oliver
There is a kind of knowing that cannot be reached through thinking alone.
It emerges when we create enough space to hear it.
When we stop rushing towards the next thing.
When we allow ourselves to be moved by what is actually here.
For ten days, we step away from the speed and noise of ordinary life.
We go off grid.
We SLOW way down.
We dance. We create ritual. We work with energy and Eros. We spend time on the land. We explore the edges between the known and the unknown.
And importantly, we leave space for emergence.
For the unexpected conversation.
The dance that changes something.
The insight that arrives while sitting beside the river.
The moment when something you have understood intellectually suddenly becomes something you know in your bones.
We listen.
Not simply with our minds, but with the ears of every cell of our bodies.
As we slow down, we begin to remember ourselves not as separate beings moving through nature, but as participants within a vast living system.
We begin to understand belonging differently.
Belonging to land. Belonging to community.
Belonging to the cycles of birth, growth, death and renewal.
Belonging to this one wild and precious life.
And from this place, another question begins to emerge.
What is the vibrant thread of your soul really here to do?
AN IMMERSION INTO SOUL
When the divinity of the body is forgotten, our connection to the earth is severed.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
EROS - Learn how to skilfully hold Eros when it arises on the dance floor.
Eros is the animating force of life. The hum of life singing through the trees. It is sensual, creative, wild and alive, and it often arises on our dance floors.
We learn to recognise and be with this potent energy skilfully, holding clear and boundaried spaces where others can explore their aliveness without Eros needing to be suppressed, feared or unconsciously sexualised and acted upon.
RITUAL - Learn how to create potent ritual spaces that give meaning to the thresholds of our lives.
For thousands of years, humans have turned to ritual to mark the great thresholds of life. Beginnings and endings. Grief and celebration. Death and rebirth.
In Level 3, you will experience the power of potent ritual space, explore what makes ritual transformative and begin to understand how to weave meaningful ritual into the spaces you hold.
ENERGETICS- Deepen your understanding of your unique energetic blueprint and the particular thread you are here to contribute.
Each one of us carries a particular thread.
A way of seeing.
A way of creating.
A way of loving.
A way of contributing to this wild, interconnected web of life.
Through energetic practices, we deepen our sensitivity to what we perceive, transmit and receive. We learn to know our own energetic blueprint more intimately so we can more fully embody and vibrate the unique thread that is ours to bring into the world.
ECOSOMATICS - Evolve how you hold ecosomatic dance spaces through a deeper relationship with the living world.
Nature is one of our greatest teachers.
We slow down enough to listen to her. Not simply with our minds, but with the ears of every cell of our bodies.
Through direct relationship with land, water, weather and the more than human world, we explore what it means to belong within the great cycles of life, and how, as facilitators, we can invite others into that remembering.
For Level 3,
we will live together at Kauaeranga Forest Education Camp, approximately 30 minutes from Thames in the Coromandel. Nestled within the breathtaking Kauaeranga Valley, this is a classic Kiwi education camp.
Belonging
Perhaps one of the deepest questions beneath SOUL is simply:
Where do I belong?
Modern life has taught us to experience ourselves as individuals.
Separate bodies.
Separate lives.
Separate ambitions.
Yet the living world tells another story.
Nothing exists alone.
Forests communicate.
Rivers shape mountains.
Our bodies depend upon plants, microbes, sunlight, water, air and one another.
Life is relationship.
Belonging to the land.
Belonging to community.
Belonging within the great cycles of life.
And perhaps from this place of belonging, we can hear more clearly the particular thread that is ours to contribute.
Art of Emergence
Much of our modern world is built around knowing what is going to happen next.
We make plans.
We create outcomes.
We fill the spaces.
SOUL asks something different of us.
Can we create enough safety and spaciousness to not know?
Can we listen deeply enough to recognise what wants to happen rather than imposing what we think should happen?
Can we trust the intelligence of the group, the body, the land and the moment?
This is the art of emergence.
It is also an essential part of becoming a skilful facilitator.
Knowing when to lead.
Knowing when to follow.
Knowing when to intervene.
And knowing when to get out of the way.
The Land
It is simple.
It is rustic.
It is completely off grid.
There is no phone signal and the grounds are breathtaking.
And this simplicity is an integral part of the experience.
For ten days, we step away from constant notifications, scrolling, schedules and the demands of everyday life.
We immerse ourselves in forest, river, mountains, night skies and one another.
The land is not simply the backdrop to our training.
She becomes part of the training.
We attune to her rhythms.
We listen.
We notice what happens to our bodies and nervous systems when we are no longer moving at the pace the modern world asks of us.
We remember that we are nature too.
Sarsha Hope
Sarsha Hope is the visionary and founder of the Somatic Dance International Teacher Training, a groundbreaking program recognized as a powerful, transformative experience that trains leading-edge facilitators and DJs. It seamlessly integrates somatic facilitation, DJ skills, ritual, energetics, and ecosomatics, all viewed through a trauma-informed lens. This unique methodology creates potent, finely-tuned dance containers.
Drawing from a vast reservoir of experience spanning over 25 years, Sarsha holds certifications in embodied flow yoga, somatic trauma therapy and somatic parts work. theta healing, massage, and is a reiki practitioner. She is also a tantrika, DJ, dance performer, Mother, and yoga/meditation teacher. She artfully incorporates a lifetime of wisdom into her offerings, encompassing international teacher training’s, online courses, retreats, and personalized embodiment coaching.
IT IS A TRUE HONOUR TO WITNESS THIS GROWING GLOBAL PHENOMENON
Founder & Visionary
Stephen Blase
Blase finds joy in bringing the freedom and expansion of the Somatic Dance space into his performances as a solo Artist and has been touring New Zealand for the summer festival season, playing at festivals such as NZ Spirit Festival, Splore, Earthbeat and Dimension festival. He has also made appearances around the globe playing traditional Ecstatic Dances in the UK and Portugal and is set to continue touring this summer in Europe.
Blase has a wide variety of knowledge that helps to deepen the potency of this dance training including his multiple years of music knowledge, 200 hour Embodied flow yoga training, a certificate in Integrated somatic trauma therapy and over 500+ hours in formal Somatic Dance space.
In this training Blase translates the artistry of his craft into practical lessons of music theory, understanding DJ software and fundamentals and the curation of an Ecstatic dance playlist.
DJ artistry
Sarah Campus
I began my journey with dance and embodiment at the age of five, immediately knowing that movement was my calling. After years of ballet and jazz, I trained at UNITEC in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, graduating with a Bachelor of Performing Arts, majoring in contemporary dance.
I went on to work professionally as a contemporary dancer for over two decades, collaborating with independent choreographers and performing with Touch Compass, Aotearoa’s leading mixed-ability dance company. This deeply shaped my understanding of inclusivity and my capacity to honour the expressive power inherent in every human body.
In 2010, I completed a Master’s degree in Dance at the University of Auckland, integrating academic inquiry with creative practice, improvisation and somatic awareness.
Discovering Sarsha’s embodied ecstatic dance was a pivotal moment. After completing Level 1, I devoted myself to the path of somatic facilitation and have since accumulated over 500 hours assisting and co-holding Level 1, 2 and 3 trainings in New Zealand and Bali.
Assistant
Sierra Espinal
Sierra Espinal is a devotee to the soul of the earth and heart of humanity, raised by the Cascade Mountains in the Pacific Northwest with Honduran roots and now a humble student of the wisdom that pulses through Aotearoa and beyond. A mythopoetic, ecologically centered yoga and somatics teacher with over 1000+ hours of yoga teacher training and a 300-hour certified somatic dance facilitator.
She is the founder of Wild Earth // Rhythm and Ritual, and immersive eco-somatice dance experience that interweaves myth, storytelling, native wild plant medicines, and embodied movement to guide the soul home. Through her work, she creates sacred spaces where dance becomes a bridge between the body, the earth, and the unseen realms.
With a reverence for the body’s innate intelligence, Sierra invites others into a profound relationship with movement, nature, and the unseen forces that shape our existence. Her work is a call to remembrance—a return to the rhythms of the earth, the aliveness of the body, and the untamed wisdom and wilderness that lives within us all.
Wild Plant Ceremonialist