About

Shannon Levy-Heath is a dancer, choreographer, arts educator, and yoga teacher.  Her performance and choreography careers span nearly 4 decades, and her academic career more than 25 years.  Beyond her education, knowledge, training, and ability, Shan brings to her work an energy and enthusiasm for her material.  When working with students, she often uses somatic practices such as imagery to communicate her coursework in thoughtful and creative ways.

 

Shannon’s background in dance ranges from ballet to modern, jazz, tap, and musical theatre.  She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in Dance.  Her performance credits include modern dance companies and musical theatre troupes, while her choreography includes concert dance and musicals.  Her dance company, High Flight, was awarded a contract from the Inter-group Cultural Arts-Awareness Program to tour the Los Angeles Unified School District to bring dance arts to students of all ages.

 

In 1985, Shan became a part-time faculty member in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at California State University, Los Angeles, where she served until 1996.  She has been an adjunct member of the dance faculty at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California since 2000 and, since 2003, has provided choreography and movement for numerous productions for the theatre department there.  She also created curriculum in Body Awareness for the Performer and Movement Styles for the Musical Theatre.

 

In 2003, Shannon was Artist-in-Residence for a California Arts Council-sponsored program at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex in Los Angeles, where she also served as Director of Education and Outreach.  For ARTreach, Shan did projects for the Appalachian Children’s Theatre, and at University of Virginia, Wise, and Emory and Henry College.  She is a member of the National Dance Educators Organization and its affiliated group, the California Dance Educators Association.

 

As a lifelong dancer, Shannon has experienced physical imbalances; some structural, others caused by dance training and/or injuries.  In 1998, after surgery, she enrolled in a yoga class to rehabilitate her body.  She discovered that the healing encompassed body, mind, and spirit.  In 2000, Shan began teaching yoga at the community college level.  Not satisfied with her level of knowledge, she enrolled in a teacher training course and received her 200-hour certification in 2006.  She is registered with the Yoga Alliance and finds yoga, dance, and Pilates to be complementary to one another, appealing to her fascination with the human body, how it moves, and its myriad capabilities and possibilities.

 

Shannon is currently a yoga teacher and studio co-manager at Vayu Yoga in Newhall, California.  She is developing Yoga for Dancers as a practice that appeals to dancers and non-dancers alike.  The course is structured to form a connection between breath and movement.  It blends yoga postures with aspects of dance alignment and basic Pilates matwork.  Shan’s goal is to address imbalances in the body, with the aim of increasing practitioners’ strength, flexibility, and overall conditioning.

 

Breathe.  Move.  Create.