Instructor: Robin Finn

Robin Finn, MPH, MA, is passionate about sharing women’s stories. She is an award-winning writer, teacher, and coach, and the founder and creator of Heart. Soul. Pen.,® a Los Angeles-based course blending writing and radical self-expression for women, and Hot Writing™ where midlife and menopause inspire the desire to say what you mean without apologizing. Robin helps women dig into their truth, find their voice on the page, radically express themselves, and transform their creative spark into a fiery conflagration. She harnesses her years in public health, education & training, and spiritual psychology in everything she does. Robin believes that finding your voice on the page transforms your life, that writers thrive in community, and that creativity is stoked through authentic sharing and supportive feedback. She feels our most meaningful work arises from our hearts and souls, not our heads. Her motto is “Don’t think. Just write.” In everything she does, Robin strives to nurture and uplift a writer’s original voice and artistic confidence.

Instructor: Alvaro Austurias

Alvaro Asturias, born in Antigua Guatemala, immigrated to the USA in 1976 and obtained a BFA from theOtis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design in 1983. His work has been exhibited at LACMA, the Los Angeles Children’s Museum, LACE, the Municipal Art Gallery and several galleries throughout Southern California. Asturias has had two one man shows in his homeland at Centro Cultural el Sitio, in Antigua Guatemala. His works have also been commissioned by collectors in Northern and Southern California, as well as Guatemala. Presently Asturias is working on the “Antigua Paintings” a series of works inspired by the people, architecture, history and legends of his native Antigua, Guatemala.  

Instructor: Ami Shulman

Ami Shulman has worn many hats in the realms of the Performing Arts. As a movement artist, she is a Performer; Choreographer; Rehearsal Director; Educator and Feldenkrais Practitioner.

Ami choreographed for the National Theatre of London, UK; the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC and has co-created works with the Cirque Du Soleil; the National Ballet of Canada and Ballet British Columbia. Ami was an associate choreographer to Maxine Doyle of Punchdrunk; has staged the works of Johannes Wieland internationally and has been a Rehearsal Director to Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Canada and more recently the GoteborgOperans Danskompani in Sweden.

Ami has taught throughout Europe, Canada and the USA including for the GoteborgsOperans Danskompani; Netherlands Dans Theater; Venice Biennale; Cirque Du Soleil; Juilliard School; BANFF Centre for the Arts; National Theatre School of Canada and Jacob’s Pillow amongst others and is an Artistic Associate of the Springboard Project. She has also taught for companies such as off broadway’s Sleep No More; Gibney Company; Lines Ballet; The Staatstheater Kassel; Cedar Lake and B12 amongst others and has guested at Universities including Berkeley; Brown University; UCSD; USC; Hollins University; Concordia University and UQAM.

Ami has an invested passion in the healing arts. She has a BA in Psychology, is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, trained in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy and has studied craniosacral therapy. She has presented her work at conferences internationally and has written articles on enactive cognition and the phenomenology of movement, her work is published in the Feldenkrais Journal and in several Dance magazines. Ami co-authored for the anthology Back to the Dance Itself with Dr Hillel Braude.

Instructor: Brian Sonia-Wallace

Brian Sonia-Wallace has had essays published in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and LitHub, and has a book of essays out with Harper Collins entitled The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter.