Studio Stories: Reminiscing on Twin Cities Dance with Rebecca Frost- Season 14, Episode 154

Rebecca Frost, CMT, MSMT, MFA  (she / her) After her career as a modern dancer, she's moved into life as a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, somatic therapist, educator and activist.

Rebecca earned a BA in Theater and an MFA in Writing and is certified in a number of modalities. As an adjunct faculty member, Rebecca taught Body-Mind Centering in the University of Minnesota Dance and Theater Department. She  created the course, Writing and Emotional Currency at The Loft Literary Center, taught experiential anatomy to UMN Medical students and at the Mpls Yoga Center, and body-sourced writing at Shakopee Women’s Prison’s recovery program for inmates. She recently served on the Board of Directors of the International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association (ISMETA), serving on the Government Relations, Research and Publication, and Equity, Justice and Accessibility committees. Through ISMETA, Rebecca is registered as a Master Somatic Movement Therapist. 

Her poetry and fiction have been published in journals and anthologies. Her MFA thesis was a novel, and she is intermittently at work on a creative nonfiction manuscript. She co-founded the popular "Dancers Who Write" reading series (with Linda Shapiro), won the Verve Spoken Word grant, and co-created The Women's Performance Project (convened by Diane Elliot) which received two McKnight Fellowships in Choreography. The groundbreaking work of The Women’s Performance Project is described in a textbook, Dancing Female, lives and issues of women in contemporary dance in a chapter entitled Fire and Ice: Female Archetypes in American Modern Dance (pg. 117), published by Harwood Academic through Swarthmore College, editors Sharon E. Friedler and S. B. Glazer. 

A few of the performance projects Rebecca has contributed creatively to in the past decade include: Angry Black Woman and Well Intentioned White Girl (at Intermedia Arts and touring), a hilarious and necessary play by Amoke Kubat; The Revolution Will Not Be Culturally Competent (for the National Evaluator’s Conference, and in collaboration with Pangea Theater), conceived and directed by Vidhya Shanker; and in residence as the writer for Waterlines (at the Gremlin Theater) by Summer Hills-Bonczyk, a ritual performance piece with 3,000 pounds of clay on stage which transformed through the evening, culminating a group intensive week of yoga-informed healing.

Rebecca helps people become the best version of themselves. She is is an advocate for all things related to human development, consciousness, and how we express it. As a Somatic Therapist, her passion lies in helping each person take his/her/their next step, providing support for that exhilarating reach beyond one's own edge. In her private practice she works with you to assist in identifying and moving through your personal growing edges, to enhance performance of all kinds, to overcome fears, to heal. She is particularly skilled at working with dancers and other performers, including rehab from injuries, moving through trauma, expanding your range, embodying your whole self in all the settings. Rebecca is one of half a dozen certified teachers of LearningMethods / Anatomy of Wholeness in North America (created by David Gorman) which brings sharp focus to human structure, function and use, and how we bring our awareness to any given problem!

Rebecca has provided Circle Keeping to Urban League High School, taught mediators at the Mpls Conflict Resolution Center and University of MN Law School, served on Restorative Justice panels for the prison diversion program of Hennepin County, and been hired to facilitate conflict in a variety of settings. 

Rebecca prioritizes racial justice and LGBTQIA liberation in the work she chooses, works with humans of all ages (pre-birth to elders), and welcomes everyone. Find out more: www.embodiedarts.com