I have been dancing with Julie for over 20 years and have been delighted to be on such a deep and transformatory journey with her over the years. 

Her love, humour, passion, care and playfulness enliven and imbue every session and take the group and individuals to strong places of healing and open heartedness as well as creating a great community between us all. 

Throughout lockdown, Julie’s genuine concern for the local community’s well being resulted in the birth of weekly sessions dancing in nature and ancient sites with headphones every week without fail come rain or shine, winter or summer. 

It was an essential life line for many people and supported them through times of deep loneliness, fear, depression, isolation and mental health issues. 

Julie’s a great facilitator and we’re lucky to have her here at the end of the land! Rachel Smart

​

 

I first started dancing about twenty five years ago, and have been dancing regularly with Julie for two and a half years now. What I most love about conscious dance practice is how it has changed my relationship to my body - how more embodied and at ease I feel in myself. This is particularly valuable to me in my work as a counsellor, especially when working with clients with trauma.

 

What I most love about Julie as a facilitator is her ability to co-create a community. Dancing with Julie has been both life-saving and life-changing. During lockdown it enabled me to create connections with others safely, during a time of great isolation, fear and stress. Since then, those connections have become firm friendships, so much so that it is difficult to imagine how diminished my quality of life would be without them. David Matthews

​

 

I first began dancing with Julie in 2003. Twenty years later I still feel the same inspiration and loving support that has become the benchmark of her sessions. For Julie, dance equates with therapy - and she gives of herself unreservedly to the process, just as any worthwhile dedicated practitioner would. 

 

During the lockdowns of 2020, she even courageously ran sessions outdoors as small support groups, using head-phones. Dancing, for some, became their lifeline, and it is my belief that some attendees might not have made it through those deep psychological and emotional challenges without such therapeutic intervention. 

 

I sometimes enjoy other dance facilitators, but something about Julie’s unassuming, humble attitude of service and the all-inclusive nature of her sessions always feels like home. Steve Slimm Artist/musician: Cornwall. 

​

 

I have been dancing with Julie for nearly 24 years. Julie creates safe and supporting spaces in which to dance, move and explore oneself. Many of the key stages of my life have been witnessed through dance and movement with Julie as facilitator. Julie is able to adapt sensitively to the energy and needs of a group and its individuals with both guidance and support. I have often felt that even though I am dancing within a group, that a particular suggestion or piece of music from Julie spoke directly to what I needed as an individual. Julie's work and the community that has built up around it is a rare and valuable resource. Richard Summers 

​

 

I have been dancing with Julie and her Soulwave community since I arrived in Cornwall in 2019. As a man in his 70s, I have found it a great source of connection and physical and mental well being. We dance alone and together with freedom and no sense of pressure. We dance in beautiful outdoor settings with connection to our diverse community, to nature and to some larger sense of belonging. Julie is a brilliant facilitator who is completely immersed in the music, the dance, the people and the place. Her presence in every moment guides us to our bodies and our movement. John 

​

 

I have been coming to Julie's Soul Wave dance classes continuously for over a year. Almost every 2nd Tuesday and I have also experienced her outside dances.

 

I come continually because I feel safe in the container that she creates.

I know what to expect and love the format and structure of the wave of music she curates.

The music allows me to warm up, set intention either by the altar or in movement, and Julie gently reminds us to do this and takes us through a body scan warm-up process.

I have experienced some severe traumatic events in the last couple of years, some self-inflicted and the consequences far-reaching. 

During the lockdown, I was in prison for 2.2 years.

To feel included, seen, recognised, and valued in this dance community has been a powerful part of my healing journey and return to self-love.

To find self-forgiveness and softness and patience, sometimes with deep cathartic tears during, the dance has been a powerful healing experience for me.

These inner experiences translate into a more resourced me that can more effectively deal with my day-to-day world and how I am able to show up.

The impact is far reaching and I almost feel like I go through a repatterning experience of letting old stuck stagnant ways that do not serve me, that is not good for me or others, and I am able to let go.

The dropping out of my head and into my body is a rare experience that takes place when I dance, the rumination, the chit-chat, the self-critic, the judge, the imposter, the self-blaming... I am not enough, good enough, loved enough... all die down.

My time in Julie's class is likened to a meditative practice, whisked away on a magic carpet ride through the varied and deeply moving music that is chosen, it's my church.

I love the feeling after dancing in the closing circle, and that lasts for an extensive time of being re- birthed, alive, renewed, and more nourished and resourced to face the world.

I am truly grateful for the community hub that it also creates, meeting the same dancers who continuously come and how this creates new friendships and sometimes needed support outside of the dance. Charles Berry

​

 

What a wonderful safe space for free expression. Thank you. It really helped me to move some emotions through and to feel strong and empowered. Amanda

​

 

I looked for local dance groups in Cornwall, but none of them felt like a good fit for what I wanted.  Knowing that I struggle to be sufficiently still to engage in the more traditional forms of meditation, and that I have a tendency to live in my head, movement has always better enabled me to be present and to connect with my body.

 

Dancing with SOULWAVE has helped me both be more present and connect with my body, as well as having reunited me with a much loved, and long-lost hobby.  However, what I hadn’t anticipated was the extent of the benefits. 

 

I believe there are many experiences for which there are no words but are stored in the body.  Being able to tune in to those experiences and provide them with the opportunity to be expressed in movement, has enabled me to begin to shift some very deep and very archaic distress, which has subsequently improved my quality of life on a day-to-day basis.  

 

While that shift describes my internal process of which the members have little or no awareness, I do not feel such profound changes could be made in the absence of welcoming, supportive and respectful others.  In all honesty, I’m not sure it’s possible to gather a nicer group of people.  I’m incredibly grateful to them, and to Soul Wave.  MG

​

 

When I shared some music from our dance recently with a friend, she replied that dancing in the dunes “sounds like heaven to me”. It made me think of the words from Faithless that also featured: “This is my church. This is where I heal my hurts”. Beautiful nature, the elements, our senses, the music moving our bodies from within and an inclusive community of smiles. This space is created and re-created each week in the forest, on a beach, in an iron age village, in the dunes, on the top of Carn Brea, on common and private land. It is beautifully, gently held by Julie and David. Thank you all for this space and for the freedom to reconnect. John Waite

​

I have always wanted to dance for the pure pleasure of dancing but had lots of negative self talk around being too old, the wrong body shape and not being good enough.

When I eventually plucked up the courage,  about 10 months ago,  to attend Julies class at the Zed Shed , I was welcomed in an authentic and kind way by Julie, which immediately helped me to arrive in a calm place within myself.  

As the class began , Julie guided me and the rest of the dancers in a beautiful grounding, then encouraged each of us to connect to our bodies, the space and each other. Giving us all permission to listen to ourselves and our bodies responding to how we were feeling without any judgements and without it having to be anything other than the way it was.

I can honestly say from that first session I felt a connection to myself that I'd never experienced before.The dancing felt joyous, freeing and healing. I felt completely at home. 

I now dance with Julie and the SoulWave group whenever I can. As well as our regular Tuesday evening sessions, we dance in the woods, on the beach and at sacred sites, bringing another way to heal mind and body by connecting to nature and the elements. There is nothing more freeing than feeling the earth beneath your feet, your body moving to wonderful music , surrounded by other dancers and all being held in the most beautiful way, quietly and steadfastly by Julie. I am so grateful for each and every session and would encourage everyone to try it.  Tanya Strike
 

 

Since I moved back to Cornwall Julie's dance space has been such an important part of my life. Not just as the only time I seem to do any real exercise (which would be valuable enough in itself!) but also dance for me is the way I can come into connection with what's going on for me without the story. It's an opportunity to take up space and express myself in ways that are not usually permitted. I don't know what I would have done without this regular opportunity to reset myself.

 

What's special about Julie's dance is that the music she chooses really resonates with me, it  helps me align with spirit and a greater version of myself . Her voice is so reassuring and helps me come into presence and acceptance, which is a practice I feel we all need. Julie really provides a much needed space. The Zed Shed in Penryn is perfect for the indoor dances and the outdoor dances are something else: dancing with the elements and in connection to the Earth is such an important thing to do. I love Julie's dedication to bringing the dance to the land and I love the way her embodiment of all things earthy and connected gets transmitted through the choice of her words of guidance to help us connect to ourselves, to the seasons and to the earth.  Lara White 

​
 

I've been coming to Julie's Soulwave dance sessions for the best part of a year and wish I'd been introduced to her approach to sharing dance and sound at sacred sites and in areas of natural beauty a long time ago. Each session I've been to has had a different feel - in part depending on whether we're on a sweeping beach, up on the dunes, or at a neolithic site. The difference each time also depends on the moods of the exquisite playlists Julie curates from a range of rhythm, voice, and sound from all around the world. I’ve been particularly struck by Julie's generosity in holding a group of people of all ages and backgrounds. The sessions are very inclusive - I arrived the first time so self-conscious and with a dread of dance being a performance, but almost immediately realised, thanks to Julie's guidance, that any approach to dance, even lying flat on the earth still and quiet, was part of the experience. Julie's skill in facilitating a group experience creates a human collective in a very special place while at the same time allowing the space and freedom to dance and be alone. For me, the overall effect of Soulwave dance sessions is one of liberation and a feeling of being even more fully alive and connected to sound, rhythm, place and humanity than before. I fully recommend Soulwave dance for anyone whether you've danced before or not, whether you're self-conscious or a flamboyant dancer - it's all good! Rebecca Ellis – Yoga Teacher