Meryem Alaoui explores the contours of corporeal identity and human connections. In the workshop The Limits of Self and Other: A Somatic Exploration, Meryem uses body-based approaches, focusing on sensations in the moment and on presence in the body.

“What if we took the time to re-learn the language of our body as our first language?”

Through movement, touch, voice, and play, she explores the possibilities of creating connections within one’s self and with others. She teaches using lived experiences and a curiosity and desire for discovering, uncovering or rediscovering as our guide.

Artistic Director of Jasad Dance Projects, Meryem Alaoui is a dancer-choreographer and somatic movement educator from Morocco, living in Toronto, Canada. Her choreographic work is often an invitation towards a softer, more contemplative and sensorial experience of dance, which she uses as her act of resistance to the louder and more dominant voices and discourses in the field. Through her workshops, she guides people to lean into the wisdom of their body to explore and engage their curiosity, and embody who they are at a cellular level. She’s been studying Body-Mind Centering® since 2016, with support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Dancer Transition Resource Centre.