Who is Zahira Mous

In Zahira's journey she discovered that her aliveness comes through joy and that she can generate joy through creating and connecting. Her life and work is about freedom through dance, meditation, writing, and creativity. Zahira has explored artistic and spiritual practices across the globe, extracting a deeper understanding of varying cultures and languages and how they influence humanity and, by extension, the arts - and vice versa,

how the arts influence humanity. 

 

Zahira invites you to find your joy and free yourself.

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Zahira Mous holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s & Gender Studies from The University of Oklahoma (US) and a Bachelor of Theatre in Education from Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden (NL). Zahira is the director of dance theater company Project Zahira with a home base in Amsterdam, and the dance education outreach program Changing Lives Through Dance, and the founder of the non-profit Healing Arts Foundation. Zahira's choreographic works have been shown and her workshops facilitated internationally in the United States, the Netherlands, Brazil, India, Greece, and most recently in Palestine. She is also invited internationally as a jury on dance competitions, such as the Oklahoma International Dance Festival, Solocoreografico (USA edition), and AmsterDans (NL). This year becoming co-director to the international dance competition alongside founding directors Gary Feingold and Savina Marasi. 

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Greatly inspired by the late German choreographer Pina Bausch, Zahira creates works that seamlessly merge dance and theater. With an interest of creating empowering experiences, she derives from her dancers’ personal stories. Overarching themes of (the search for or the peeling away of) identity seep through Zahira’s dance theater works - with an emphasis on social awareness regarding gender identities, gender (in)equality, and women empowerment. 

 

Zahira works with professional performers as well as with people that seek emotional freedom in life. Her aim is to facilitate healing through dance; via her professional dance productions, such as Soul Famine (2022), Reclaiming the Goddess (2019) and Who am I without my Story? (2017) as well as dance education outreach programs, workshops, and retreats. Zahira developed her own method called SIT in Motion (Self-Integration Tools) - a healing practice of movement & creativity, in which the participant is invited to listen to the wisdom of their body through dance improvisations, guided meditations, and creative assignments. People leave the workshop feeling more alive and connected to themselves with new personal insights. Zahira also developed an alternative choreographic composition method called ART in Motion (Artistic Regenerative Tools).

 

Besides her professional training in dance and theater, Zahira is a certified Ayurvedic Yoga Massage therapist, aerial yoga teacher, and has completed training in art therapy, meditative therapies such as Mystic Rose and No Mind, Primal and Path of Love, and is working towards accreditation as NLP practitioner. 

 

Additionally, Zahira creates Energy Art; these are paintings that Zahira creates by meditating on and tuning in with the client’s energy, evolving into artworks that show their aura and energy through colors and shapes. Clients have perceived the commissioned art works as a reflection of themselves, a mirror of sorts from which they can learn more about themselves. You too can get a custom commission!

 

Beyond her work as an artist, Zahira is a writer. She writes as a dance critic for Theater Magazine in the Netherlands. Currently, she is finishing her memoirs with which Zahira hopes to inspire many people.

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Welcome to a space of freedom.

May you be inspired to reclaim yours and live your life in flow and creativity.