Arawana Hayashi

Arawana’s pioneering work as a choreographer, performer and educator is deeply sourced in collaborative improvisation. She currently heads the creation of Social Presencing Theater (SPT) for the Presencing Institute. Working with Otto Scharmer and colleagues at the Presencing Institute, she brings her background in the arts, meditation and social justice to creating “social presencing” that makes visible both current reality and emerging future possibilities.

Her dance career ranges from directing an interracial street dance company formed by the Boston Mayor’s Office for Cultural Affairs in the aftermath of the 1968 murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, to being one of the foremost performers of Japanese Court Dance, bugaku, in the US. She has been Co-Director of the Dance Program at Naropa University, Boulder, CO; and founder-director of two contemporary dance companies in Cambridge. MA. She continues to perform in a multi-disciplinary performance ensemble, originating out of Naropa University and the ALIA Institute, where she currently teaches in leadership programs.

Arawana is an acharya (senior teacher) in Shambhala – a global network of meditation centers dedicated to applying mindfulness to “creating enlightened society.” She teaches both meditation and art based on bringing out the basic goodness of individuals, of relationships and of society.