Our NatureMoves Team
Melinda West Harrison
Program Facilitator (EAT, WDR, DoE),
Executive and Artistic Director of NatureMoves
Melinda West Harrison is co-founder and executive director of NatureMoves, co-facilitator of the Embodied Arts Training (EAT), and principle creator and artistic director of WilderDance Retreats (WDR), now celebrating 27 years of annual dance trips into wilderness.
Melinda is deeply engaged in the work of Anna Halprin. She began dancing with her at age 4, performed with her in Venice, Italy at age 15, and joined her San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop Company in 1969, where she performed in the multi-racial production of “Ceremony Of Us” with an all black group from Los Angeles at the time of Watts riots.
Trained extensively at Tamalpa Institute since 1984, she served on the Tamalpa board of directors during 1990’s, and trained as facilitator of the “Planetary Dance”, “Movement Ritual” and “RSVP Cycles”, key resources of the Tamalpa work.
Passionate about movement-based art in wilderness environments, she loves mapping dances and making “scores”, such as the site-specific dance ritual called “Journey’s Score” we perform at all EAT and WDR Retreats.
David L. Harrison
President of NatureMoves Board
David has been co-leading and participating in many of the NatureMoves events with his wife Melinda, since it began in 1990, dancing as one of the endangered whooping cranes. Since that time, he has served as lead facilities manager, kitchen czar, janitor, and amateur financial officer, as well as chair of the board. In addition to dancing in nature, he loves dancing Brazilian samba, forró, salsa, contact improv, and Body Mantra.
He is a retired water resources lawyer and engineer in Boulder, Colorado, currently working as an independent consultant on conservation of rivers and clean energy, focusing on integrated planning of renewable energy in Brazil as a way of minimizing the impacts of hydropower on river ecosystems. Previously he worked for 25 years as a senior water resources advisor to The Nature Conservancy’s, Global Freshwater Team.
David was a member of the Board of Governors of The Nature Conservancy from 1980-1990, and was Chairman during 1988 and 1989. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, holding degrees in law, 1971, and Civil Engineering, Hydraulics, 1968.
Maureen “Momo” Freehill, MFA
Program Facilitator (EAT, WDR, DoE), Treasurer of NatureMoves Board
MFA, Directing Asian Performance University of Hawaii
Founder of Butopia; offering nature- based retreats + somatic wellness training in PNW + Whidbey Island, WA. In Colorado, she serves as primary faculty and board member of NatureMoves, nurturing embodied intimacy between humans and nature. She specializes in creation, management and promotion of all aspects of our educational, artistic and nature based programs.
With over 30 years as improvisational performer, educator and director: Maureen is recognized internationally for innovative fusing of eastern + western modalities with what’s natural; she creates Butoh Landscape offerings in lineage of Kazuo and Yoshito Ohno, with whom she lived and studied for many years in Japan, for regular appearances at major dance events.
Maureen is passionate about landscape based dance explorations. She founded and directs a number of site-specific dance in place projects and websites including DailyDance.net; a celebration of 50th Anniversary of Butoh dance with over 500 daily videos in different sites globally, Gene Keys Movement; a weekly dance video project focused on 64 Hexagrams of the I Ching, and Let’s Dance Together Online; a Covid19 inspired and NatureMoves sponsored project to keep people all around the world connected and dancing “in place” during this time of “stay at home.”
In private practice, she utilizes eco-somatic inquiry and movement arts to guide groups + individuals through their embodied self-illumination; including navigating the Gene Keys and Human Design systems.
Odile Nicole
Board Member and Secretary for Nature Moves
Artist. Teacher. Facilitator.
Odile is a New Orleans based performance artist and facilitator. She has been cultivating her creative practice and love of the wild through her relationship with Nature Moves for many years. Simultaneously she has been growing a deep love of somatic healing practice and mystical wisdom. Through her personal art and facilitation work, she serves by creating incubators for alchemical transformation and sacred nourishment, both individually and in groups. Today, she brings her love and perspectives in service of Nature Moves.
More about Odile: ignitingpresence.com
