Our Mission
Critical Mass Dance Company is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that supports well-being, resilience, and joy through heart-centered dance, movement, and other healing arts. Our trauma-informed work is by and for women, gender-expansive and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals from Black, Indigenous, communities of color. Our offerings celebrate both ancestral wisdom and emergent practices, creating embodied spaces for people to reconnect to their spirits and each other.
What is Dance from the Heart?
CMDC teaches a trauma-informed, community-based embodiment practice called Dance from the Heart:
Check out this short Dance from the Heart demonstration from WeRise Walk for Wellness May, 2021!
- Dance From The Heart helps us to envision and embody our greatest visions for our lives and world
- As we embody these visions with movement, we help create the personal and social transformation we wish to see
- Dance from the Heart cultivates resilience, supports mental health, builds community care and contributes to a system that promotes wellbeing of mind, body and spirit
Check out this short Dance from the Heart demonstration from WeRise Walk for Wellness May, 2021!
Who We Are
Elena Sophia Kozak
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Elena Sophia Kozak (she/ella) started her career as a community organizer working in educational justice and immigrant rights. After experiencing a period of burnout, she embarked on a healing journey to reconnect to her Cuban roots and love of dance through salsa and other latin dance forms. This personal journey led Sophia in 2010 to create Critical Mass Dance Company (CMDC) with a dynamic group of activist women as a space for healing, community care, and social change through dance and movement. Her background in social justice, healing arts and dance inspired Sophia to develop a healing movement practice called Dance from the Heart, which is taught at all CMDC’s community programs.
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Misha Agunos
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Misha Agunos (she/her) Misha leads CMDC's communications, administration and operations. She oversees CMDC’s outreach, marketing and social media, as well as offers project management / logistical support to all programs by building and optimizing systems and structures for greater ease and flow. Misha is passionate about creating trauma-informed community spaces for grounding, nourishing, and return to self through embodied movement practices. As a long-time social dancer, performer, and pole dancer, she is fascinated with how dance can help create community cultures that instill their members with liberatory values and move them to meaningful action.
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Rosalie Tucker
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Rosalie Tucker offers support to CMDC's team as a grant writer. She is an Arts Administrator, Educator, Grant Writer and Advocate who uses her platform to support access to and engagement with artistic and creative experiences for all. She works as a freelance grant writer and the Managing Director of B. Dunn Movement, a performance art company that creates work revealing the universal spirit of our shared humanity. She is also the Director of Operations at The Gro House, a hub for mutual-aid, catering, food services, and community resources for other the Queer/Trans Black, Indigenous and POC communities of Los Angeles. |
Johanna Iraheta
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Johanna Iraheta (she/ella) leads the development of CMDC's Community Care Clinics and other public programs. Johanna leads CMDC's Community Care Clinics and all public programs. Johanna is an artivist who aims to uphold marginalized communities' intellect, identity and ancestral knowledge through art, movement, dance, theater and storytelling. Jo’s mission is to provide participants with somatic and creative experiences that cultivate intergenerational empowerment, healing and community resilience, using tools such as pop-up activations, community wellness events, and community skill sharing. Johanna holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California and a B.A. from California State Northridge.
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Azucena Ortiz
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Azucena Ortiz (she/ella) is the teaching artist for CMDC's Women Empowerment Program, which provides healing movement classes to women and non-binary individuals who are survivors of trauma, including sexual violence, domestic violence, illness and war. Her desire for her children to grow in a better world ignited her passion for healing and social justice. Azucena brings 17 years of experience supporting diverse communities of families and individuals with non-violent communication and conflict resolution through parenting classes, retreats, and trauma-informed workshops. She co-founded/co-directs The People’s Resource Center. Azucena joined CMDC as a dance student in 2016 and become CMDC's lead teaching artist for the Women’s Empowerment program in 2017. |
Maria Franco-Rahman
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Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman (she/ella), is the teaching artist for CMDC's Staff Wellness Program, which provides healing movement for the collective care of the staff working at the nonprofits we serve. In addition to being a CMDC teaching artist, Maria has been part of the movement to end gender-based violence for over 15 years, centering the healing and liberation of Black, Indigenous, Women of Color survivors, advocates, activists and our fellow communities on the margins. Maria has led sessions at healing retreats and conferences in Florida, Massachusetts, Ecuador and across Southern California as well as co-led virtual series across the nation and sovereign territories. She is the founder of Con Todo Corazon where she offers heart-centered holistic healing services designed to support personal and social transformation.
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CMDC Wisdom Circle - Board of Directors
Wisdom Circle Members support the growth of CMDC with their love, time, energy and expertise.
We thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their service!
We thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their service!
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♥️
Betina Steiger, Board Chair Shirley Vilca, Board Treasurer Misha Agunos, Board Secretary Aloha Cerit, Board Member Thelma Orellana, Board Member ♥️ |
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