CONTRA-TIEMPO presents "Embodied Book Club" Movement and Stories

Next date: Sunday, April 26, 2026 | 06:30 PM to 08:30 PM

CONTRA-TIEMPO and Village Well Books & Coffee present
"An Embodied Book Club"

This is a dynamic, participatory series creating space for embodied dialogue, movement, and storytelling inspired by Sonya Renee Taylor’s groundbreaking book The Body Is Not an Apology.

Rooted in creative play, improvisation, breathwork, and collective movement practices, this four-workshop experience explores the power of radical self-love and our shared capacity to resist body-based oppression. Together, participants engage Taylor’s unapologetic, body-liberating writing through lived experience, imagination, and community practice—moving ideas off the page and into our bodies.

Across the series, participants will co-create an embodied performance piece, weaving personal stories with collective wisdom and joy. The journey culminates in a celebratory gathering featuring a live performance of CONTRA-TIEMPO repertoire, accompanied by live music and a DJ, amplifying rhythm, connection, and the liberatory power of dancing together.

Come ready to read, move, reflect, and imagine—building meaningful belonging through bodies in motion, radical welcome, and collective joy.

For Information and RSVP, visit the event page.

About the facilitator:

Holly Johnston is a movement artist, dance educator, and somatic specialist whose work lives at the intersection of choreography, embodied research, and community-based wellness. She holds an MFA in Choreography and a BA in Dance, and has taught extensively in higher education, including University of California–San Diego, California State University–Fullerton, Loyola Marymount University, Chapman University, and California State University–Long Beach.

Johnston’s artistic practice is grounded in somatic phenomenology, movement analysis, and trauma-informed pedagogy, approaching dance as both an aesthetic inquiry and a social practice. As founder and envisioning director of RESPONSIVE BODY, she leads body liberation practices that integrate movement research, care ethics, and collective healing. Since 2022, she has served as Somatic Ecologist with CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater, providing embodied wellness support, creative collaboration, and somatic-social practice development for artists and communities.

Her choreographic work has been commissioned by universities, festivals, and professional companies across the U.S. and internationally, supported by organizations including NEFA/NDP, NPN, the Department of Cultural Affairs–Los Angeles, and the Culver City Cultural Affairs Division. A former Dance Magazine “25 to Watch” artist and Lester Horton Award recipient, Johnston continues to research how movement can cultivate belonging, disrupt systems of body-based oppression, and generate cultures of care through artistic practice.

 

 

 

 

 

When

Location

Village Well Books & Coffee, 9900 Culver Blvd, Culver City, 90232, View Map