“The Inner Work of Social Justice: Untangling the Patterns of Injustice Woven into our Minds & Bodies” - Joan Gavaler, Guest Worship Leader

When it comes to our work for social justice, we know external actions are important: To vote, to protest, to advocate. In this week’s service, we will look to the process of deconstructing the internal patterns of thought and emotion that continue to hold the culture of white supremacy and patriarchy in place.

Joan Gavaler has been a professional dance and theatre practitioner for 38 years and a somatic practitioner based in the Alexander Technique (AT) for 27 years. As Artistic Director of Aura CuriAtlas and a Dance Professor at William & Mary, she has created 85 original works, relishing collaborative discovery with poets, visual artists, composers, actors, acrobats, physicists, and neuroscientists on dance and theatre projects. She uses her AT background to help people who seek self-understanding, authentic expressiveness, and support for processing challenging thoughts and emotions. She has been invited by 80 organizations to present and teach in the U.S. and internationally, most recently somatic workshops supporting self-care for climate activists in St. Andrews, Scotland. Seven years ago, she became part of the Alexander Technique Liberation Project. The AT Liberation Project “supports, empowers, and advocates for equitable access for all who seek embodied freedom. We look to advance AT as an anti-oppression tool. We commit to decolonizing the practice and teaching of AT by promoting initiatives toward unearthing overt and implicit biases. We assist those who are developing AT programs that de-center the white, patriarchal Western European lens of its origins.” Joan is currently re-developing her AT course at W&M to be a somatics course supporting social justice.

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