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Francesca Castaldi, Ph.D.
I am a certified Focusing Trainer with the Focusing Institute of New York—the international certifying organization for Focusing Professionals. I have studied intensively with Ann Weiser Cornell (U.S.) as well as with Barbara McGavin (England) and I have been influenced by their contributions to Focusing theory and approach to teaching.
I have found Focusing to be a practice of hope, liberation, and friendship. This is why since 2004 I have committed to Focusing not only as a profession but also as a way of building communities and new ways of living.
I hold a Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory and degrees in the Social Sciences and Cultural Anthropology. I have taught courses in dance, dance studies, and anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Riverside (UCSD, UCLA, UCR) as well as at Occidental College.
I am the author of Choreographies of African Identities (University of Illinois Press, 2006) a book about dance and politics in urban Senegal and in U.S. theatres.
To Focusing, I bring my extensive research in the relationship between language and embodied experience, valuing both as essential aspects for communicating, understanding, and growth.
To Focusing I also bring an anthropological understanding of socio-cultural patterns and how they impact the way we interpret and confront life challenges.
Having lived in Italy, the United States, Senegal, and Argentina, I am aware of the diversity of expectations, aspirations, and personal values that you may bring to our work together.
I am committed to respect and value our collective as well as personal differences and ways of being in the world, honoring the ways in which we as individuals may draw strength and wisdom from historical memories and collective visions of the future.
My capacity to stay deeply present and responsive to your process has been nurtured by my many years of engagement with structured improvisation, as a practitioner of yoga and as a dancer of Contact Improvisation, Motivity (aerial dancing with low flying trapezes and bungees), and West African dance forms.
I view Focusing as a kind of improvisation which follows the organic unfolding of your being, while responding to the larger dance of life.
I consider teaching Focusing an experience of mutual learning, and I am always honored at the opportunity to accompany you on this journey toward self-discovery. I am also delighted when age differences allow for the gift of inter-generational communication.
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