Acharya Arawana Hayashi

Arawana Hayashi is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher, trained in both Japanese and Western art forms. She is also an Acharya (a senior teacher of meditation) in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. From her career’s inception, her work as an artist and meditation practitioner has been intertwined with innovations in community building and education.  Since the 1970s her focus has been on using non-verbal collaborative improvisation methods to increase personal presence and group performance. Arawana is a founding member of the Presencing Institute (www.presencing.com) and is currently on the faculty of the ALIA Institute (www.aliainstitute.org) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.