I write and research in the field of dance, sacred movement and sound, yoga and meditation. This website is a home for blogs as well as journals and articles for your perusal. As a black British woman of biracial descent, I oppose white supremacy, and coloniality. My ancestors were both slaves and enslavers. I am here now, beyond surviving, I thrive and flourish upon the sound of my African ancestor’s drums, and shaking ankle bells, shared dance tradition with my close Indian sisters and brothers, also colonised.

My area of particular interest and research is the history of the colonisation of yoga and the diasporic, emergence of contemporary yoga in Britain. Looking at societal impact and social justice. I ask, are we losing the spirit of yoga? Whose yoga is it anyway? What is this thing we call yoga today? I began practising yoga out of a life of dance training and professional performance. I deeply engaged with both Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga and Iyengar yoga, for me I was moved by the flow and intention of Ashtanga and the early community in London almost 30 years ago. At the same time, I was stilled by the alignment and order of Iyengar, reminiscent of my former training in ballet.

I have been teaching for 40 years, a ruby anniversary to which I am proud. That teaching has traversed, contemporary dance (Martha Graham), physical theatre, creative writing, movement and, of course yoga (since 1999). I am founder, director of Amasu Yoga School please visit if you are a school, University or company that would like to book me for lectures, talks, or workshops. I have most recently founded Nourish to Flourish, an incentive to support Black Scholars as part of the Ebony Initiative at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University of London, a project I am leading with Dr Mikal Woldu

I am eagerly building community, those of like mind whose positionality is relational to mine. Please contact me, black scholars, black writers, women of the world, poets, and artists, this is an invitation to participate in a decolonised forum which explores our both our emancipation and our freedom. I would like to hear from our allies, of which I know there are many, how does your work inform our new world?

We have come a long way but there is still way long to travel on this road to true liberation and equality for all sentient beings. Colonialism is not over whilst it is still, all over. My current research is looking at how coloniality has affected, restricted, and attempted to own movement of black and brown bodies. I am looking at where dance and yoga intersect and that, moving relationship over the past 100 years.

Photos Jessie Barry