• Aaila has been practicing various martial arts for over a decade, and has always found joy, focus, and empowerment through these practices. Her martial arts background has roots in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and includes some Muay Thai influence.

    Her organizing and education work, including and beyond the Bodily Sovereignty Collective, is rooted in and inspired by the community defense traditions of her Jewish and Irish ancestors, as well as the martial tactics and strategies of trans and colonized peoples today.

    Aaila loves to eat the delicious treats her sweetie bakes, make knives, get up to hijinks, and listen to podcasts.

  • Jonna started studying ballet and tap at age 5, but didn’t truly fall in love with dance until she joined her high school dance team, where she served as captain for two years and competed at the NDA and EDA National Championships.

    In 2007, she graduated with a degree in Dance and Psychology from Marlboro College. She worked as a choreographer and head instructor, later moving up to staff director, as well as judging at the regional and national championships for the Eastern Cheer and Dance Association and spent two years on the halftime staff for the Capital One (Citrus ) Bowl in Orlando. As a Dance team coach and choreographer, her dances have won states and received honorable mention at nationals.

    She taught dance at studios and community centers throughout the state of Vermont and performed with companies in Vermont, Massachusetts, upstate New York, and Virginia.

    After time away from dance due to chronic illness, Jonna fell in love with pole. She started taking classes at Revolvt in November 2022 and now pole dance is all she thinks about all day long! She’s looking forward to sharing her love of movement and community with you.

  • Petra began their formal martial arts training in the mid 1990s at a Madison, Wisconsin dojo affiliated with Mitsugi Saotome’s Aikido Schools of Ueshiba. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 90s, they were fortunate to become a student of Michael Esmailzadeh at Suigetsukan, a collectively run dojo in Oakland, where they trained alongside members of Girl Army, a collective offering peer-taught self-defense classes for women and trans folks. Petra trained at Suigetsukan for twelve years, studying a “hard” form of Yoshinkan-derived Aikido, Danzan-Ryū Jūjutsu, Toyama-Ryū Battōdō, and the Kadena de Mano system of Inayan Eskrima.

    Petra co-led self-defense trainings for queers as part of larger DIY skill share events in the Bay Area, and created and taught a self-defense curriculum for young adults at a residential mental health treatment program in Vermont.

    Petra’s other community work has included playing brass music in support of workers’ rights, housing security, humane immigration policy, sex workers’ rights, and BIPOC-centered community organizations. They have also volunteered as a massage therapist, providing bodywork in Oakland to low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. Through a grant funded collaboration between the Immune Enhancement Project and the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, Petra provided no-cost massage services to clients of Trans Thrive, a project offering support to low and no income trans people in the Bay Area.

    They currently direct a middle school theater club, are a member of an improvisational Playback Theater troupe, and in 2022, acted in & choreographed fight scenes for Shakesqueer Vermont’s inaugural production of Romeo & Juliet.

  • Beatrix has been training, practicing and studying self-defense and situational awareness skills, fighting, and martial arts for 15+ years, and teaching and sharing these and other skills of empowerment along the way. She's cross-trained in a variety of arts and styles and lineages, with multiple teachers in multiple countries, with an emphasis of martial skills lineages from Japan, China, Malaysia and the Middle East. These have included ninjutsu, jiu jitsu, pençek silat, aikido, krav maga, systema, win chun, and boxing.

    Beatrix is a firm believer in collectively sharing resources and skills of empowerment that keep our friends, families, communities and selves safer and healthier. Access to such practical resources and skills is too often limited from those who need them most, and unfortunately often gatekept by uncomfortable, creepy, misogynistic, toxic people and spaces. Beatrix strives to share in dismantling this oppressive dynamic within self-defense training and within practiced autonomous community healthcare, which to her are in fact one and the same.

    She's a Scorpio, avid lover of animals, nature, and long walks in the woods, a clinical herbalist and medic, queer anarchist and witch🕯️🦔❤️‍🔥

  • Shannon Kelly’s dance style is centered around her studies in contemporary and Brazilian dance as well as house, waving, and African. Shannon has visited Brazil many times to study with teachers and continues to deepen her studies every year. Shannon’s love of Samba started in 2011 the first time she visited Salvador, Brazil. Shannon focuses on educating on the roots of where dances come from as well as staying true to the form. She brings joy and depth to her classes as well as light-heartedness and humor.

  • Fitness aficionado Emma Manion-Kohr is a dance educator, artist, and personal trainer who’s pumped to bring one of her longtime favorite classes, “Sunday Service DANCE” to River’s Way. Her courses and trainings have been helping Vermonters revel in their bodies since she moved back home to the Green Mountains from San Francisco in 2016. Her crafts have become honed through two decades of continued education in and through collaboration with many interdisciplinary artists & companies. Emma finds her work in the mental health field and herbalism further inform her passion for creative expression and physical vigor. She's had a lifelong fascination with the human body's composition, capabilities, and direct link to quality of life. Her choreographic work is reflective of this curiosity, and her classes are designed for students to have ongoing "aha!” moments, too.

    Website: revelingfitness.com.

    Insta: @revelingemma

  • Aliza fell in love with progressive strength training with kettlebells many years ago while working with Abdul Mujib of North Country Kettlebells. After three years of lifting, they became a certified instructor and partnered with Mujib coaching individuals & groups in Montpelier & Burlington & ran a queer kettlebell club in Toronto. Their approach is grounded in celebrating the naturally effective, fun & functional ways of the bells while remaining grounded in curiosity & respect for the magic & wisdom of the body. When they aren't lifting or coaching they are likely woodworking or enjoying some manner of adventure.

  • Kim has been training on the pole since the fall of 2020. She began her journey in Asheville, North Carolina with no formal dance training, and has since fallen in love with the practice. She worked with RevolVT in Burlington and found her way to River's Way Movement this past spring. Kim has a special place in her heart for beginners - as she remembers the intimidation of becoming a dancer later in life.

    As a local yoga teacher, Kim views pole as a whole being experience - mind, body, and soul. She focuses on strength, agility, and mobility on the pole. Finding "flow" is always a component of Kim's practice, both on and off the pole. Kim loves the power, fire, and confidence that can emerge from this style of dance, especially when combined with the empowerment of music. In class, Kim strives to create an environment that is safe, welcoming, and supportive which allows the whole being to flourish <3