User:Dance Researcher/sandbox/Alex Svoboda

Alex Svoboda, born Alexandr Nikiforov (Александр Никифоров, born 9 October 1970 in Yaroslavl, Russia) is an author and conscious movement educator. He is the founder of freedomDANCE school of dance meditation and conscious movement and a Board member of the International Conscious Movement Teachers Association.

Education and Earlier Career
Svoboda loved to dance from an early age, but never had formal dance training, except for occasional dance classes in his 20s. Prior to starting freedomDANCE, he was involved in academic and business research, University teaching and consulting.

Svoboda graduated with an honours degree in History from Yaroslavl State University, and earned a Master's in Management degree from Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. In 2001, he received his Ph.D. in History from Moscow State University. He has author a number of publications on US urban history, housing finance and public access to legal information. In 2002, Svoboda published an academic book about the growth of suburbs in the United States after World War II.

Teaching dance meditation and conscious movement
A few years later, Svoboda discovered dance as a form of meditation and started teaching it under the name of freedomDANCE in 2009.

Svoboda has completed teacher training certification with Gabrielle Roth in 5Rhythms (2011) and Open Floor (2016). He has also studied with with Anna Halprin.

In February and March of 2017, having faced a progressing hip pain, the death of his father and an end of an important relationship, Svoboda spent three weeks in the darkness and isolation as part of an ancient Ayurvedic ritual in India. He danced daily during that time, and, in 2020, published a book In the Rays of Black, to document his movement explorations.

In 2016, Svoboda, together with Ruslan Mazaev, recorded freedom to move, an album with freedomDANCE cycle instructions over music, in English and Russian. It was released again as three singles by freedomDANCE music in 2021.

Reception??

Writing in her book on art coaching, Inna Gulyaeva talks about her experience as part of the Intimate Friends freedomDANCE on-going group with Svoboda; she wrote 'half of the book dancing' and finding answers to many of her questions in the dance.

Alexey Kuzmin writes about Alex's teaching. https://sobiratelzvezd.ru/intervyu-s-volshebnikami-sasha-nikiforov/

Recording

 * Jhoom
 * Still Chillin'
 * Bardo (with Boris Grebenshchikov)
 * Tribe
 * Refuge (with Boris Grebenshchikov)
 * Zone Unknown
 * Stillpoint
 * Tongues
 * Luna
 * Trance
 * Waves
 * Ritual
 * Bones
 * Initiation
 * Totem
 * The Raven Classics – 4-CD boxed set
 * Endless Wave
 * Endless Wave 2
 * Music for Slow Flow Yoga
 * Music for Slow Flow Yoga 2


 * Other producers


 * Path: An Ambient Collection (1995) Windham Hill Records
 * Conversations With God: A Windham Hill Collection (1997) Windham Hill Records

Television and video

 * I Dance the Body Electric (1993)
 * Secret Egypt (1995) Mystic Fire Video (Directed by Sheldon Rochlin)
 * The Spiritual Path to Success (1997) Quest special on PBS (now part of the Quest Life Trilogy, only available in the Quest Wisdom Collection).
 * Sukhavati: A Mythic Journey (1997 [music]) [DVD 2005] for Joseph Campbell Foundation and PBS (Produced, Directed, and Edited by Maxine Harris and Sheldon Rochlin).
 * The Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD 2004)
 * The Power Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD 2005)
 * The Inner Wave (2001) Sounds True VHS (DVD 2005)
 * Ecstatic Dance Trilogy (2004) Sounds True
 * Dances of Ecstasy (2003) [featuring: Michelle Mahrer, Nicole Ma and Gabrielle Roth] BBC / Opus Arte
 * Open Floor: Dance, Therapy & Transformation (2002) Raven Recording
 * The Great Lesson: A New Film About Mind and Body: Featuring Gabrielle Roth