Gaia Laskou

Gaia is a mother, dancer and belly dance teacher, graduate of Perinatal Yoga of Birthlight UK, birth doula trained by DONA International USA and Usui Reiki Ryoho Master – Teacher.

She was born in Athens in January of 1977. From her childhood she exercised dance, gymnastics and theater. She experienced a deep relationship with nature spending her holidays and leisure time with her family at villages of Corinth and in tours around Greece. She studied at Athens University of Economics and Business (International and European Economic Studies) while she was giving English and French lessons in children and adolescents as certified with the Proficiency of Cambridge and Sorbonne I. She was a member of the University’s theatrical team and for five years she played in street theater with the group Buffonata.

She took classes and seminars of physical theater (Torgeir Wethal-Odin Teatret, Tapa Sudana) movement and acrobatics (Kayo Beltz), phonetics and folk singing (Basilis Kontaxis, Martha Frintzila), percussion and swirling (Nikos Souliotis), brasilian percussion (Ravi Magnifique, Batuca, Maestro Marquino), butoh (Maria Mendez, Grigory Glazunov, Natalia Zhestovskaya – Odd Dance Theater), shamanic techniques for actors and dancers (Helen Fost – Temenos Theater) tai chi (Francoise Poutays), hul dance (Hilde Otterholt), belly dance (Diana Rhea, Safak Pedur, Sadie).

She has studied anthropology, anthropogeography, ethnology and history of dance as well as its healing dimensions in the framework of her research for roots belly dance, where the concepts of origin, human wholeness, collective consciousness, original expression and improvisation, folk and fertility dances, connection and biology, are crossed at the wonder and joy of the existence we experience daily. She followed training seminars and programs of breastfeeding, first aid, reflexology, Arvigo Techniques of Mayga Abdominal Massage, shamanic healing techniques, while she has taken part in group analysis societies. She is studying pedagogic methods such as Montessori and Waldorf that promote human nature and applies them into the raising of her daughter. This is also the pedagogical framework upon which is based the “Seeds Choro workshop” where school and preschool age children find space to move, express, discover nature and culture in connection to the body, feeling and mind. The approach and techniques of all of her teachers by whom she was taught dance, motion, voice, theater, have reinforced her connection with nature and the elements leading her to a deeper knowledge and understanding of herself. They opened up paths to her quest of balance of the body, spirit and soul showing her ways to empty herself in order to connect. In those fields, she came in contact with traditional yoga through practicing Satyananda Yoga and she still tries to stay true to her path every day in every possible way.

She is a Full Teaching Member of IYTA (International Yoga Teacher Association) and E RYT-200 at Yoga Alliance.

From January of 2006 she gives classes of belly dance in dance schools, yoga studios, healing centers and cultural areas as well as seminars, shows, presentations and lectures indoors or outdoors. These classes are the ideal yoga for women of every age and girls over 7 years old. They have an effect in all levels and awaken participants in order to ground their feminine energy. They are the first phase of the full peri-natal cycle for those preparing for maternity, a pleasant, safe and effective exercise during pregnancy and an ideal preparation for childbirth.

The ultimate unifying experience was the birth of her daughter which brought her to the world in November 2007. After the childbirth, she continued with the peri-natal cycle as a professional, always with love to the motherhood, the couple and the baby. She was trained in peri-natal yoga by the organization Birthlight founded by Francoise Barbira – Freedman in order to combine yoga practice with the sensitive periods of pregnancy, birth and puerperium. She owns the Birthlight Perinatal Υoga Diploma and teaches pregnancy yoga and postnatal yoga for mother and child. She prepares future mothers and their partners for childbirth and for the transition to parenthood, helping women to restore their prenatal physical condition in order to return to more dynamic exercising. She focused on childbirth through her training as a birth doula by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, Ibu Robin Lim and Guiditta Torneta. She is currently at the stage of her international certification as a birth doula from the organization DONA International, USA. She joined childbirth sector as a professional with the encouragement of the world-renowned traditional midwife Clare Loprinzi and now she works as a birth doula at the side of pregnant and their partners.

She is trained to serve birth and mysteries of life as a genuine student. She is a Master-Teacher of Usui Reiki Ryoho available for therapy and coordination. Her work is integrated in Birthing and Dancing that she wishes to be a source of inspiration and a channel of creation for all of us…