Creative contemporary dance and portable Pilates classes for all ages led by Maureen Shea* in Western Massachusetts.

*Originally from Canada, Maureen has been dancing & improvising since she was seven years old.  She first received her teacher training in the Margaret Morris Method with the help of her extraordinary teacher Ingrid Parsons in 1984.  She attended the dance program at Canterbury High School in Ottawa and with the encouragement of her teachers Madeleine Demers and Fabyenne Gosselin, began leading dance projects.  From 1998-2001, she was a student in the Contemporary Dance Program at The School of Dance in Ottawa, under the direction of Sylvie Desrosiers.  Maureen founded the Grasshoppa Dance Exchange in 2001 to make and perform unannounced dances in public places.  Soon after she became a Pilates teacher, receiving her training from Jacqueline Ethier at The Pilates Space in Ottawa.  She has studied with dance masters Peter Boneham (contemporary technique), Andrew Harwood (contact improvisation), Peter Schumann (Bread & Puppet Theater) among others and has danced for choreographers Marc Boivin, Yvonne Coutts, and Sylvie Desrosiers.  As a dance teacher, she’s taught in Canada, the US and Italy.  Maureen was an artist-in-residence at Earthdance in Massachusetts in 2005 and moved to the area shortly afterwards to build the family home with her husband, Stephen.  In 2009, she founded the Grasshoppa Arts Initiative , It Takes a Village and birthed her boy, Henry.  Besides her family, friends, and the grand outdoors, dance training & performance are her passions.