"Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them."
- 6260 N. Lockwood Ridge Rd. Sarasota, FL 34243
- 941-359-YOGA(9642)
- contact@ReflexArts.com
Where every class is a moving experience
"Three qualities are required if one is to become an artist: One must have aptitude, or the ability to acquire mastery of the art; one must have tremendous love for one’s art in order to work on it with determination, effort and concentration, and one must have imagination and creativity to develop the art along new and unknown paths."
Director
Ginny East has a BA in Business Management from Eckerd College and a Masters of Fine Arts
in writing from Lesley University. Her extensive background in dance, yoga and the healing arts have helped
her create a multi-faceted school with an educational program that combines arts awareness, physical
training and mind-body awareness for ever-broadening learning experiences for both children and adults.
In the area of yoga, Ginny is an E-200 (Hatha) and E-RYT 500 (therapeutic) yoga instructor who is also a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. She draws from extensive knowledge of Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga styles, and has trained in chair yoga, yin yoga and restorative yoga techniques as well. She is acknowledged as the leading aerial yoga trainer in the southeast USA, specializing in yoga teacher training courses at both the 200 and 500 level. Ginny, a former professional dancer and choreographer, draws upon her extensive range of movement studies to provide a safe and insightful physical yoga experience that includes proper alignment and structure as well as a gentle, easy to understand presentation of meditation & breathing. She encourages students to use journaling and other methods to tap into internal wisdom for stress relief and physical awareness. Ginny is also Reiki trained and currently is in process of earning her diploma as an Ayurveda Practitioner. Her studies of energy transference and organic lifestyle methods, as well as her Master's degree in writing, provide a foundation for guiding students into a deeper level of understanding as they discover yoga, journaling, and organic lifestyle choices as a path to self-healing and personal balance.
As a dancer, Ginny is a former performer and teacher from NYC, named one of the top ten teachers and choreographers in NY by Dance Pages Magazine at the height of her dance career. Among the professional schools in New York she has taught for are Steps, The Broadway Dance Center, Vassar College, New York University, and Raoul Gelebert Studios. She choreographed the off-Broadway hit Tracers at the Joseph Papp Theater in NY and the feature film Whatever It Takes. She has received numerous awards for her innovative choreography and has trained nationally recognized competition winners, with many of her students performing on Broadway, in National tours, with the Rockettes, and in national and/or regional companies, including the Martha Graham Company, Houston Ballet, and others. She spent a year directing Universal Studios in Canada and later became the founder of FLEX Dance Studios in Sarasota, a school that became Florida's largest and most established dance schools which she co-directed with one of her students (later to become her husband), Mark Hendry, for 18 years.
She was the author of an international newsletter of creative dance concepts called KIDDANCE, as well as the KIDDANCE Syllabus, videos, CD's and educational workshops, a program used nationwide by many studios today, and currently being remastered to address the shifts in dance education today.
Specializing in dance teacher's training and studio consultation, Ginny has been on the Dance Masters of America national staff, featured at the Kent State University teacher's training school, the Boston Teacher's Training School, and has been a master teacher at over 17 chapters of DMA and for many of their national conventions. She's been a teacher and/or judge for Dance Educators of America, Dance Masters of America, Showstoppers Competitions, I Love Dance, Chicago Dance Teacher's Association, and other regional dance teachers associations, conventions, and competitions. She has been a featured master teacher at the Florida Dance Festival and several of her choreographic works were selected for performance there by the West Coast Dance Project, a regional contemporary dance company. She has also choreographed for the Gateway Ballet Company of St. Louis.
Ms. East has authored many articles on youth dance education, dance theory and yoga in dance periodicals and health and wellness magazines, such as Dance Teacher Now, Dance Pages, Dancer Magazine and Natural Awakenings. A writer as well as a dancer, she has won the Royal Palm Literary award in both historical fiction and memoir and the New Southerner Literary Award for non-fiction. She has been a guest speaker at several writing seminars and she guest-teaches writing for various organizations.
