"This is WAAAAAAY better than ballet. This is rock and roll." Giovanni, age 6, right before she leapt back into the fray and did a somersault. 

“Dog Dance is the tuning into the language of all living things.” Kate Frothingham

"Bodies that laugh so hard they cannot hold form, nothing is so beautiful." Nancy Ruff, at the end of class one Friday, after we had all dissolved in laughter.

“You are the original Pussy Riot.” Random guy in the parking lot after a show.

"Thank you for supporting the saline waters of me to slosh and ripple and for the invertebrate within to be remembered." — Gabrielle Edison

“I had a dream last night, about my past self, and my expression of her feeling unwanted. And how you affirmed how all of me was wanted in the dance, needed in fact. I awoke thinking about your ability to imbue the specialness of each of us individually and as a collective. And the way in which you hold both without esteeming one at the expense of the other; this quality is what creates true feelings of belonging. You also offer people their power back — for good, by creating, at all odds, carving a space for a person/collective to have truly their own experiences in space and time, until we learn to be guardians of this space too.”— k.

"That was the most warm wonderful satisfying deep and absorbing dancing with you that I can remember from this lifetime.  Thank you." -- Johannah Franke

"Ciao bravissima Joanna - this improv was FANTASTIC. I wish everyone could see it. I wish work like this could happen always and forever. You are brilliant, and couple with your awareness and insight as a person, the clown just shoots into the stratosphere. And skewers us."  -- Elizabeth Baron, performer, teacher and Artistic Director of LaLaTheater Company.

“That you can penetrate through zoom and still create a profound holding space for us, is a testimony to your amazing personal and professional work in granting yourself and others the permission to feel safe enough to go deeper into their embodied experience. i am so grateful.” — Kate Frothingham

“Thank u thank u thank u. Your mail is just as always so deeply touching, thoughtful and inspiring…! A feeling arise that I am in a precious community getting your wonderful mails!” — Ulrika Wedin, Sweden

“First I wanted to start by thanking you for your wonderful session at Leadership Fellows yesterday. It was amazing to see the class participation and transformation. I feel that you were really able to get them engaged and it was a great tie-in to ways to think about their own leadership. If you would have said that within 45 minutes I would see everyone in that class (including me) just freely dancing, I wouldn’t have believed it. Thank you!”   -- Karen L. Kruse, Vice President for Finance and Chief Operating Officer at The Boulder Chamber of Commerce

"Joanna creates earthquakes.  She re-aligns the universe."    -- Julie Rothschild, Owner of Floorspace and Julie Rothschild Movement

Thank you, in a very big way, for holding a space in which it felt safe — and good — to show up." — Gabrielle Edison

"I can find someone else's breath in the room when I cannot locate my own." -- Helen Turner

"Am I allowed to feel this good?  I am so grateful to be living in a body.” — Elia Seely

"You are the Richard Freeman of the dance world." -- Marcie Goldman

“It sounds like you made quite the impact at Leadership Fellows yesterday, and that’s exactly the energy that we like here at the Chamber! “ -- Sarah Beall, Member Relations Associate at The Boulder Chamber of Commerce

"Yes to your stillness and thoughts. Be undone. Beautifully written."  -- Tracey Johnston

"Oh my! I am moved through and through, all the way to the essential. Thank you for your newsletter." — Ana Maria Hernando,

"I don't know what it is, but I feel so comfortable here.  So much more comfortable than in any authentic movement group I've ever been in.  Even with my eyes closed and we are doing our own thing, we are still looking out for each other."   -- Paulette Fire

"You are a witch." – Sandra Levitt

"She makes crazy dances that are so raw and uncertain and honest with the audience about what they are. She's an artist on a really unique path. I have a huge amount of respect for her."
– Laura Ann Samuelson

"She has the tenacity of a Guard Dog."  -- Donald Munro, The Fresno Bee

"A beautiful, jaw dropping, moving, wild, tender, passionate, delicious dance-theatre piece with 4 generations of inspirational women performers…Go see and book seats ahead of time!"   – Gemma Wilcox

"THE GREAT GREEN is like an american Bar-Be-Que gone wrong.  Or it is like the Borscht Belt has gone postmodern on us. The grass. The meat. The animal sounds. It is like astronaut food.  While it is not "Jewish" in any sort of thematic or religious way there are all these subliminal ties to Yiddish theater and comedy. A certain kind of humor and goofiness."   – Jill Sigman, Artistic Director and Founder of ThinkDance

"Fantastic, strange and thought provoking! Just saw the show again and came away wondering what it means to be a mother, daughter, lover. Who cleans up our messes and then tromps on what we have created? Scolds us when we have gone too far? Makes us feel dirty and gluttonous. And then forgives?!" --  Amy Shoffner

"Dear Dancing Queen--
i have been meaning to tell you that i did make it to my friend's wedding in L.A.  AND--drum roll, please--i danced every single dance. That's right, danced the night away, with such joy. Know why?? Because, thanks to our class, i have found the freedom to move and enjoy this essential part of being alive. I love it!! This is one of the great joys of this chapter of my life. i truly feel released from an old prison from my childhood. i do feel i can trust myself to move and genuinely express who i am at any given moment. What more could i ask?  You just can’t imagine what it meant to me to be back in that room…where so much that is so important has changed my life. To feel the floor, to see the light on the prairie, to hear your voice, to be close and moving with others is soul food that is irreplaceable. So delicious and sweet. May you continue to create, love and enjoy who you are and the work that you do, my dear. It’s beautiful, and so are you.  xo Linda"

“Seeing Goodnight, Courtney Love reminded me that dance is alive and well in America. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.” – Jennifer Keller

“Goodnight Courtney Love: Utterly brilliant and deeply pleasurable.”  --Bhanu Kapil

“I was SO craving class after your STUNNING performance of Dog Dance.” — Simone Key

"Dear Amazing Joanna,  I normally do not read the various news letters that I am subscribed to…but every time yours comes into my inbox I am excited and I read pretty much all of them. I love the way you write. I love the way you think and are. I love the way you move me. I love the way your words inspire me and open up my day and my heart and make my insides jump up and down with yes!!! Yes I want this!!! Thank you for your kind and honest wisdom. I love how your dancing is like your writing…it IS upending and sweetly agitating. You are a thrill of a person. Thank you for doing everything that you do. May the garden of your dancing being always flower and be pollinated and fruit and ripen and be eaten by everything that wants it and fall and drop and decay and and plant itself and grow and start all over again. Much Love, Emily."

“Fabulous, Jo!  I'm tingling all over and shouting YES!” —Aileen Hayden

"This show is exquisite! It is such a relief to attend something – and to take it seriously – (which I do)- that that DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. It is composed and performed with considerable virtuosity, tenderness, and HUMOR: this show is funny! It is also clever, intriguing (don’t look away, even for a minute – you’ll miss a clue!) and is like a Russian doll – stories within stories within stories….stories of buried cakes, hurled roses, old songs hummed, and…. so much more!"  -- Audience Member at Let Them Eat Cake

"I have never experienced the universe in this way."  -- Simone Key

"I am agitated by the delight and surprise of your newsletters. I love seeing your mind. Keep 'em coming, magic lady." -- Teresa Spark

"I am going to do this for the rest of my life." -- Liza Patrick

"Dearest Joanna,
I love, love love your emails. I love the simple, grounded way you connect to your (and our) mind, heart and body with your words ( and spirit.)    I love your emails more than any other 'list serve.' And I know you are a dancer, but your writing is among my favorite comfort foods. Thank you!" -- Sara Wright

"Hi Joanna! I am just writing to say THANK YOU! Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for staying true to doing it Your Way. Thank you for sharing the wealth.You are completely inspiring. Your colorful, dynamic, bluntly-honest contemplations/renderings, have been helping me to keep a light on, to not take myself so seriously. Finally, I'm feeling more unstuck than stuck these days. As I have been thinking of why, I realized how much your powerful unapologetic sensibility has been unconsciously working on me." -- Janna Meiring

"I cannot tell you how much I love your weekly emails. Last year at my stressful, void of creativity and humanity job as a healthcare consultant, I would sneak off to the bathroom and read your emails. More than once they reminded me that I was still an alive being and more then once they made me sob with the joy of knowing that you exist and you create a world full of the work that I admire and adore. So thank you for those life saving moments for me!!" --  Ailey Picasso

“You are a wonder. You are a wonder. You are.” — Steve Wangh