exploring body-mind through movement & touch
Creating a sacred space where there can be flow
Through the transmission and teaching of somatic movement we intend to nurture
creative learning, community coherence, whilst practicing ecologically sensitive placemaking
Sarah Gray | "Tzara" BA Hons SELF®
(she/they/them)
Founder and pluri-disciplinary artist.
Somatics Experimental Learning Facilitator®
Exploring body-mind through movement and touch
I live and work in Totnes (Devon, UK) offering individual lessons in somatics, yoga, human anatomy and hosting collective learning labs and study groups. My work is informed by research and experiential learning. I am interested in collaborative, practice-led movement research and creating safe, inclusive environments for the work in studio and outdoor sites.
I am a Somatics Experiential Learning Facilitator® and freelance creative producer, broadcaster and DJ with a background in theatre, choreography and community radio art.
I am a teacher with the School Of Experiential Learning on the Holistic Studies in Human Anatomy programme. With over a decade of teaching experience informed by my dedicated practice of Body-Mind Centering, I am set to graduate as a Somatic Movement Educator in July 2026.
Practicing yoga since 2012, I certified as a yoga teacher in the spirit of Vanda Scaravelli in 2017 in India and have been continuing my professional development by learning from first and second generation Scaravelli-inspired teachers over this time, locally and internationally.
cultivating a living arts practice
and an artful living practice.
Sound
Explore sound as a medium of touch,
listening as an act of both giving & receiving,
& voicing as a means of expression & somatization
As part of self-led solo arts project Sound Journeys, Tzara produced a digital sound-walk for Dartington, presented at the Schumacher College symposium Language, Landscape and the Sublime in June 2016. For more information, contact directly.
Site
Facilitating experiences
to offer up the opportunity to rediscover
our relationship to place.
We are always exploring the context - our place, the landscape, our memory, and pattens of movement. Tzara is interested in rituals on rural and urban terrain, at threshold places.
Tzara's work (2005-2025) centers on the Dartington Hall Estate through broadcast, walking, listening, spoken word, embodiment practices and sound recording.
Somatics
The exploration of the relationship between body and mind through first-person perception;
To directly experience; To pay attention to; To notice;
To create the conditions for more choice.
In a world of information,
can we embody and grow our felt knowledge?
Somatics is sensing and feeling the relationship between body and mind. By bringing greater awareness to our whole selves we begin to become present to embody the reality of this constant change.
By turning in we limit how much we depend on the externals.
Overcoming addictions and habits, being neuroplastic and available to respond - these are the benefits of regular somatic practice. Developing this response-ability is a process! It is one where love and patience are required. With regular practice, we develop a greater capacity for self-care and therefore community and place care.
"The key to physical, psychological and spiritual well-being lies in our Soma, which can perhaps best be defined as the essence of bliss or Ananda
arising from the core of our being"
-Frawley, D. 2013. Soma in Yoga and Ayurveda. Motilal Banarsidass: Delhi, India. p.13
For me, somatics practice is a process of deepening my sense of trust in myself and the universe.
Research Interests
Tzara's ongoing pluri-discipline approach to art, body-mind and meditation practices as part of her ongoing research learning include, but are not limited to;
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Sound
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Sound-walks and in-ear audio composition, inspired by Janet Cardiff, Hildegard Westerkamp.
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Radio arts, experimental broadcasting and community, grassroots, independent media organisations.
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Site
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Eco-somatics, special interest in work of Andrea Olsen and Caryn McHose - Body & Earth.
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Site-specific and site-responsive performances, including land-art, ephemeral arts and walking arts
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Ritual and ceremonial arts - radical folklore renaissance, recovering Devon rites and festivals from the wheel of the year.
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Drifts, derive and walking art practice informed by the Surrealists and Guy Debord, Richard Long and Wrights and Sites.
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Somatics
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Hatha yoga in the spirit of Vanda Scaravelli and her legacy as embodied by first and second generation teachers
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Body-Mind Centering, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, cellular consciousness, embryology and developmental patterns.
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Human Anatomy, experiential anatomy: anatomical schemas, illustrations, colouring plates, and models.
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Fluid systems of the body with a particular interest in cellular, ground fluid, fascia and fat.
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Authentic movement practices, of Mary Whitehouse and Janet Adler.
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Choreographic and movement improvisation practices of Dartington College of Arts including legacy ofContact Improvisation, the connection between CI and BMC as published through Contact Quarterly.
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Collaborative, devised physical theatre and avant-garde performance art making processes of Dartington College of Arts
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Education, Training & CPD
Dartington College of Arts
First Class Bachelors of Arts with Honours in Theatre and Choreographic Practices. Dartington, Devon, UK. September 2005 - June 2008.
Yoga Health Mandala
https://www.yogahealthmandala.co.uk/
A Warrior's Balance 50 hours CPD (online) 21 April - 26 May 2021.
Vitality of the Spine 50 hours CPD (online) 20 January to 28 February 2021.
200 hours Hatha Scaravelli-inspired Yoga Teacher Training. 1-month immersion in Goa, India. February-19 March 2017.
The School Of Experiential Learning.
https://www.tsoel.org.uk/
Somatics Experiential Learning Facilitator® (SELF®).
3-year, 17 module course hosted near Buckfastleigh, Devon, UK.
Modules:
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Contextual Practice Module: self-directed learning. 3 October - 6 March 2026.
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The Closing Gesture: Facilitation from a somatics perspective. 14-18 September 2025.
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The Opening Gesture: Foundations. 3-7 August 2025.
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The Unseeable Animal Encounter & kinship in the natural world. 12-15 May 2025.
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Our Life Sense: The Immune system from an embodied perspective. 2-5 June 2025.
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The Embryo in You. 21-24 July 2024.
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Infant Developmental Movement. 11-15 May 2024.
Holistic Studies in Human Anatomy from an experiential perspective.
Assisting Participant of a 2-year course, and pre-requisite to the SELF programme.
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Year 2. Buckfastleigh, Devon. October 2017 – March 2018.
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Nervous System
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Muscles
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Endocrine
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Organs II
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Year I. Dartington, Devon. October 2016 – March 2017.
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Skin to Cells
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Skeleton
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Fluids
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Organs I
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Body Mind Centering®
https://www.bodymindcentering.com/
Somatic Movement Education (SME).
Ongoing and due to complete and graduate with SOMA Association, France in July 2026.
Modules completed:
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Ligaments and Facia System, SOMA Association, Paris, France; 21-27 February 2026
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Endocrine, SOMA Association, Grenoble, France; 16-22 October 2025
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Ontogenetics, SOMA Association, Valcivieres, France; 16-20 July 2025
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RRR (Primitive Responses, Equilibrium Reactions and Righting Responses), SOMA Association, Valcivieres, France; 7-13 July 2025
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Basic Neurocellular Patterns, SOMA Association, Valcivieres, France; 12-19 April 2025
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Organs System, SOMA Association, Paris, France; 14-22 February 2025
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Nervous System, Embody Move, Edinburgh, UK; 13-20 December 2021
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Fluids System; SOMA Ass, Grenoble, France;
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Skeletal System; Somaatikum, Tallin, Estonia; 9-20 August 17.
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Senses & Perception 1; SOMA Association, Paris France; 23-26 April 16.
