Meet LIZA TRAVIS (FREDDI):
Liza currently lives and works in Forrest at the local primary school in education and wellbeing support. She is a life-time lover of dance and founder of Mind Your Groove (MYG), a community dance collective based in Forrest.
She has experience in various movement and dance practices including ashtanga yoga, contemporary, jazz, tap, ballet, reggae, dancehall, hip-hop, afrobeat, middle-eastern, african dance and rhythmic gymnastics. It was many years ago when she realised her passion for freestyle dancing - preferring a freedom of movement to all sorts of music without set steps or styles. With the passing of her parents whilst having young children, dance became a healer. Dance therapy and dance improvisation showed her the power of moving her body through difficult emotions.
Since then she has been a regular attendee to and Ambassador of No Lights No Lycra, co-creator of Random Acts of Dance
RAD (outdoor freestyle dance experience with costume, all ages), and performed in various of shows of choreographed and freestyle dancing at Trades Hall Theatre, Brunswick Town Hall, Coburg Night Market, Dancehouse, The Village, Falls Music Festival, La Mama Theatre, helped run the Mind Your Groove Dance Roadshow and most recently worked and performed with Wild Honey Performing Arts at Winter Wild Festival in Apollo Bay, Torquay Night Market, Birregurra Hall opening and Elevate, Walking with Giants project, dancing and walking on stilts.
She has helped direct the last 3 school plays for Forrest Primary School, and has run children’s dance workshops around the area, having started a business with friend Ruby Jackson before Covid.
She is currently studying a Graduate Certificate in Creative Therapies which is supporting her intuitive and felt experience of creativity, especially dance, being healing for the whole being. This course is showing her different ways to introduce dance for healing and is bringing her new learnings to Apollo Bay to dance with all ages once a month.
Dance is such a vast discipline, and she loves to explore the many many ways to move, but overall she believes in the benefits of freestyle dance. A completely open dance form, free from any restrictions or distinctions of movement it is a highly personal act, freestyle is always your style, your groove - you can ebb and flow with others, you can sync and react but your dance is always your choice, your expression - it’s your life, your experience and your self that create the way you move your body when given nothing but freedom and music. Its the dancer’s self portrait and a way to allow the body to heal itself. This is the essence behind MYG, however in this life and culture it can be very intimidating to just close your eyes and dance.
This is where DANCES TO MIND YOUR GROOVE comes in - a series of dance therapy informed dances that gently encourages dancers to move their body, find their own groove and mind it.