About
Sri Louise was introduced to Hatha Yoga in 1993 at the Jivamukti Center in NYC where she sites Alison West as her first and most influential Yoga Teacher. Sri began teaching in 1995. As an Indie Instructor, she is adamantly opposed to institutionalized styles, especially as they pertain to the body, and esteems somatic inquiry over formulaic posturing. Since 1999 she has been a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, under whose spiritual tutelage she studies Vedanta, Samskrtam and Vedic heritage.
She lived in India from 1998 to 2000 and regularly returns to South Asia to study within her Sampradaya, tradition. Sri is greatly inspired by the literary mythology of Hinduism, the healing system of Ayurveda and by the religious fervor of bhakti/devotion. She is however, most faithful to the vision of the self as revealed through the Upanisads. Exalt Your Yoga is a unique pedagogical program designed to foster an ontological appreciation of ourselves, the world we live in and Isvara, God.
Sri teaches an integrative approach to Asana and has developed a unique pedagogical process for understanding Asana within the larger philosophical framework of Advaita Vedanta, which she refers to as Embodied Cognition. She is the visionary behind the Underground Yoga Parlour for Self-Knowledge and Social Justice, where she teaches Asana classes that fuse physical honesty and cognitive clarity with social responsibility.
My lovely life assistants, Mackeral Jack Valentine, Macaroni & Mimi Josephine Valentine, Liddle one!!! They travel and teach with me!!!
Sri Louise has been dancing since the age of four. She attributes her love of dance to her mother, Jane Brandley, who taught ballet in the basement of their home.
Sri's concept of dance was derived mainly through Hollywood musical movies. When her father saw her perform in Sarah Michelson's first choreography in San Francisco, 1990, he retorted, "She'll never get to Broadway doing this kind of work!"
And so it was...
Carving an independent career for herself, she has danced with various artists in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Austria and Belgium.
Most notably she served as physical coach for Sidi Larbi Cherkoui on his duet Zero Degrees with Akram Khan in London 2006, which led to assisting Cherkaoui on chroepgraphic productions for The Ballet of Monte Carlo and the Cullberg Ballet, Stokholm.
Sri was a featured performer in Cherkaoui's Myth, which premiered at the Desingle in Antwerp, Belgium in 2007
Sri is currently investigating the dynamics of white supremacist, capitalist. patriarchy
as it pertains to both Yoga and Contemporary Dance Performamce.
Vagina Tarot & Smashtown are on-going explorations into the realm of anti-patriarchal performance. Stay tuned for up-coming productions.
