About Nancy

In these Dancing Your Soul classes Nancy unifies her love of movement and music with her healing spirit and sense of interconnectedness.

Nancy became a certified Kripalu DansKinetics® instructor in 2001. She has assisted Daniel Leven in teaching the certificate courses and has participated in many of the post-teacher trainings since that time. She brings a wealth of experience in dance as an art form and movement as a science to her classes.

As a physical therapist with a focus on the care of persons with musculoskeletal dysfunction, Nancy is able to adapt movement to the particular needs of group members.

DeMuth's dance classes offer fun, exertion without the pressure
By Linda Weltner
Swampscott Reporter > Arts & Lifestyle (Thursday, December 15, 2005

"Women of a certain age often hesitate to join a dance class,” says Nancy DeMuth, a woman of a certain age herself. “The internal pressure to keep up with a class can inhibit participation, as can a pace that’s a little too fast or a degree of difficulty that’s geared toward younger women.”

She continues, “It’s hard to find a dance class that’s safe and fun and a workout at the same time. This isn’t a class where you put your foot here or you put your arm there. My aim is for participants to leave having exerted themselves, yet filled with a sense of well-being, centeredness and calm.”

DeMuth leads her students in a dance experience based upon Kripalu DansKinetics®, an expressive movement approach co-founded by Daniel Leven at Kripalu, a yoga retreat in Western Massachusetts. By combining Kripalu DansKinetics® — with its emphasis upon the awareness of body sensation — and her own training in jazz, modern, Latin, and African dance, DeMuth has created a program that rises from the heart and creates a connection between the dancers.

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“I was looking for something in the movement world that allowed my heart and soul to feel alive, that helped me feel connected to myself and other people. Structured dance classes were fun but didn’t satisfy my spirit. This kind of dancing is for everyone because it involves expressing how you feel, not worrying about how you look,” she explains.

“I pay a lot of attention to the physical limitations of the participants, “ adds Nancy, who practices physical therapy in town. She has students with leg braces, rotator-cuff injuries, back and knee problems, and arthritis.

DeMuth’s classes combine practices from yoga, tai chi and modern and creative dance. In her classes students, begin by stretching and engaging in slow movements. Following DeMuth’s lead and taking the lead themselves, the pace and fervor builds to music with an international flavor, including African and Latin rhythms, sometimes using such props as scarves and tambourines.

“I call it ‘kitchen dancing’ or ‘no-shame dancing,’ because it’s not about being good enough. You can’t be bad. You’re just working on the balance between your personal spirit and moving with the group,” says Maren Falck, a participant.

Adds fellow participant Jan Norcross, “I’d never done a dance class in my life, but the spirit that exists there is very freeing. It’s very personal and it’s a lot of fun.”

Are there any prerequisites for her class?

“All that’s required is that you love to move,” she says, smiling.

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