Bio
Corazon Tierra is an interdisciplinary dance artist, poet, writer and dance educator. She has spent the past two decades creating experiences that blur the boundaries between art and life, and between personal transformation and community healing. Moving beyond traditional notions of dance, Tierra offers her creations as an invitation to be present in the body, in the here and now, free of shame and judgment. A key aspect in her dance work is the exploration of kinesthetic empathy as a means to harmonize with Self, with others, community and with the planet.
Tierra is best known for harmoniously fusing her poetry and dance in performances that challenge beauty perceptions and reveal the connection of the female body with the natural world. Many of her works have been inspired in her healing process from anorexia and in goddess archetypes, such as CuerpOdiosa/Goddess/dam Body; Nine Faces of Oyá/Faces of the Earth; Unraveling Absence and The Vessel Goddess: Origins.
Her interdisciplinary dance work reaches women and families in spaces out of the theater: in community centers, churches, schools, bakeries, galleries, gardens, patios, and cafes. Tierra has shared her work in the US and internationally: in women festivals in Spain, in townships in South Africa, under the sky in the African Karoo desert, and at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña in Puerto Rico.
iTerra’s fiction writing is included in Breaking Ground: Anthology of Puerto Rican Women Writers in New York 1980-2010. She is the author of Cuerpografías: Poesía para amar tu cuerpo, a poetry and prose book in Spanish that reveals her journey of healing from anorexia.
In the last years Corazon has developed various participatory dance forms that emphasize community engagement and collaborative choreography. The CanvasDiving Dances takes place inside a visual art exhibit and offers viewers the opportunity to experience the paintings in the gallery in an embodied way. DanzaYo is a community dance practice that guides participants in the creation and sharing of an original group dance in the course of a few hours.
Tierra is the official dancer of the Mary Magdalene Celebration, a multidisciplinary project created by artist Tanya Torres and musician Raquel Rivera that fuses creative spirituality. As part of this collaborative project, she has created a series of meditative dance inspired in Mary Magdalene: Promise; Sacred Heart Sacred Dance, Devotion I, Devotion II, Dancing the Dark Magdalene and Abrazar/Embrace..
Corazon teaches dance and somatic movement to children, youth, and families in New York City. Her main emphasis as a dance educator is to provide a joyful and non-judgmental atmosphere where adults and children feel safe and confident to express themselves through dance. Corazon is the creator of EduDanzaTM, a somatic movement dance education approach for children of all ages.
Tierra holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from Hofstra University and Master of Arts in Dance and Somatic Well-being from the University of Central Lancashire (UK), and a Master of Science in Early Childhood Education and Social Emotional Learning from the Erikson Institute. She is certified Language of Dance Master Practitioner and an ISMETA Registered Somatic Movement Educator.
Corazon has also studied numerous dance forms, choreographic processes and somatic methods, such as contemporary dance, Flamenco, Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba, Laban Movement Analysis, and Bartenieff Fundamentals, which influence her work.
She is the co-founder, along with artist Maria Mar, of ShamansDance Publishing and Productions, a company dedicated to creating art dedicated to creating art that heals and transforms the Self and the community.
