Partner Dance in Paradise
Cart 0

Partner Dance in Paradise

Dates for 2024/25 coming soon!

Email helentocci@gmail.com to be put on the waiting list.

photo 2.JPG
 

The Retreat Experience

Together, where the rainforest meets the sea, we will dance, connect, and nurture ourselves and each other for 8 gorgeous days and nights. What will be all the ways - small, abundant, and absolutely stunning - that your most connected inner dancer will surprise you? We are thrilled to witness your beauty!

 

Dance

Do you wonder what it would be like to step onto a dance floor with ease and confidence - knowing that you have the skills to create a beautiful experience for yourself and your partner?

During our week together, we will investigate the technique and energetics of dancing in a lead/follow relationship to many different kinds of music and become fluent in embodying both roles.

Fusion is a dance that emphasizes partner communication, musicality, and freedom of expression. You and your partner co‐create a dance inspired by the music. We will dive into the fundamental aspects of partner dance - pulse, weight shifts, connecting to your partner, and connecting to the music - any kind of music.

We will develop clear tone, intention, and awareness and be able to transform any connection into a deeply satisfying partner dance.

Musicality will be a focus as we gather tools and learn how to gift our partners with our sensual experience of the music. 

We will leave the retreat with the confidence and knowledge to create pleasurable partner dances and have a whole new community of dancers to play with!

Connect

Are you desiring deeper connection in your life - to yourself, to others, to the world around you?

Together we will explore, through both solo exploration and partner work, many different aspects of connection.

Drawing respectfully from many practices - Fusion Dance, Contact Improvisation, Partner Yoga, Sensorimotor practices and Thai Massage - we will cultivate an enhanced sense of awareness and communication; expand connection possibilities; and build skills to clarify invitations and boundaries. Through play, dancing, and reflection, we’ll deepen our sense of belonging to both self and community.  

We will strengthen our resilience by naming our curiosities and revealing both our discomforts as well as our pleasures. By sharing with each other somatically and verbally we aim to integrate and deepen our sense of belonging to self and to community.

We welcome individuals, partners and groups. We welcome explicit conversations about race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, consent and class as a group of individuals who are guests of Costa Rica with privileges, vulnerabilities, and of various social identities.

Beginners and advanced dancers alike will find their dance vastly enriched by this deep dive into connection.

Nurture

Have you been dreaming of time to break out of the hum-drum and deeply attend to what most needs to be nurtured in you?

While we will be offering many classes and techniques and skills and experiences, this retreat is first and foremost about you. What do you need? All of the offerings will be optional so that you can have the rare opportunity to attend to what most needs to be nurtured for yourself in each moment.

The Goddess Garden offers so many opportunities for nourishment. From the luscious organic, locally sourced meals to the architecture gorgeously integrated into the rainforest; the wonderous jungle pool to the miles long stretch of pristine beach; the massages available at the spa to the flower laden paths through the jungle - a flora and fauna lovers dream.

What delights you? Mermaiding in a blue pool. Your loudest laughs startling the monkeys and slow sloths. Afternoon naps in a hammock slung under a palm tree. Sleeping late and spending the day alone with the ocean. Water dancing with playful friends under a canopy of stars. That never-have-I-ever wish fulfilled while adventuring. Let’s do it!

 

Rest & Relax

Imagine waking up surrounded by huge jungle trees and bright tropical flowers. Howler monkeys follow you through the rainforest canopy as you make your way down a flower laden path to eat a perfect breakfast of tropical fruits in a treehouse surrounded by jungle. Butterflies, tucans and various frogs are sighted over coffee.

After swinging with your favorite book in the shady hammock palapa, you cool off with a delicious dip in the magical pool. A sloth stretches lazily in the tree high above you.

On your way to your afternoon massage, you stop to visit the oldest tree in Cahuita, Costa Rica. Its roots, taller than you, leave you breathless.

As evening falls, you stroll to where the jungle meets the ocean and watch as the gorgeous sunset colors are reflected in the rolling waves. As a blanket of brilliant stars opens up above you, lights twinkling through the trees guide you home, and you hear the distant sounds of the evening dance beginning...

IMG_3997.jpg
 

The Goddess Garden

A place to revel in beauty

  • Delicious, organic, and locally sourced food including seafood and chicken

  • Gorgeous pool and gardens

  • Massages and spa packages available

  • Indoor and outdoor studios with 360 views of the jungle

  • Caribbean inspired bungalows nestled in the midst of the rainforest.

  • Short stroll to miles of pristine beach

  • National seashore a short drive away

  • Charming town to explore

  • Curated adventures charted by our Goddess Garden hosts

 

Explore & Adventure

Situated in the middle of some of the last protected Rainforests and Caribbean Sea, Cahuita is a perfect destination for Eco-Tourists.

From horseback riding on the beach, to dolphin watching to chocolate tasting tours, our gracious hosts at the Goddess Garden can easefully help you plan your adventure!

You may choose to experience a lot outside of the retreat setting, or you may want to stay close to home. At some point during the retreat, we will all travel together for a day of dancing and exploring at Cahuita National Park, a magical experience of the jungle, its flora and fauna, with the wondrously beautiful Caribbean Sea at the jungle’s edge.

IMG_2182 2.JPG
 

Come Play!

Your facilitators

Helen Styring Tocci creates space for people of all ages to explore their unique creativity and discover the innate strength and wisdom that lives in every body. With 25 years of experience as a professional dancer, vocalist and movement teacher in NYC, her work has been presented throughout the city and beyond. She is a longtime teaching artist and currently a dance curriculum specialist for Juilliard, traveling the world supporting schools in implementing innovative performing arts programs that cultivate personal artistry, curiosity, and empathy in emerging global citizens.. A passionate improviser, Helen travels internationally (most recently to Kripalu and Earthdance) teaching connection, awareness and musicality through CircusYoga, Contact Improvisation, and Fusion Partner Dance.

Jaycelle Pequet loves to explore embodied questions like…where in your body does that sense of spaciousness live…that fear, is there a micro-movement that feels resourcing…if that voice inside you were embodied how would they move…what color is your hair when you find that it. Jaycelle builds connection within self and others in their work with queer, trans, and bipoc individuals as a sensorimotor psychotherapist and founder of The Institute for Emerging Adulthood. They have produced movement and arts events in service of social justice for bipoc communities on the West and East Coast. As a movement artist in continual learning they have trained Capoeira Angola, modern bachata and Brazilian Zouk.

 

Start Your Adventure Now

 
 
photo 4.JPG