About Vinn Martí - Designer of Soul Motion
Award winning performer, choreographer, and designer of Soul Motion, Vinn Martí served as co-director of Portland Oregon's innovative movement arts studio, Body Moves for 18 years. Vinn now leads workshops and seminars internationally teaching Soul Motion™, a movement ministry of conscious dance as a design for experiencing movement as meditation.
"On July 4, around the mid point of the 20th Century, this Bronx anomaly was propelled into a noisy world during a lightning filled and stormy night at approximately 2:15 AM. He spent early years as an altar boy at St. Pious V reciting mass in Latin, eating toasted hosts with chums in the sacristy, and making himself available for as many funerals as possible. Ringing the lamentation bell while visualizing being sent out in all directions through the bells' ever widening circular vibration was a particular highpoint of the service.
As a young child viewing dancers on a variety show he suddenly found himself viewing the TV and the room contents from a cyrstallized viewpoint. He knew what the dancers were up to and how they did what they did. This perception was relaxing and agreeable in nature and was his introduction to dance.
Upon graduation from Cardinal Hayes High School. vinn entered the military and spent the next four years wondering, wandering, and worrying as his final year of service was spent stationed at Cam Rahn Bay in South Vietnam. His release from the military occurred and the next four years were spent as a bank teller for Manufacturer's Hanover Trust, short stints in jewelry design school and hair dressing apprentice, factory worker, night club greeter, and dish washer.
Upon reading Earnest Callenbach's "Ecotopia", vinn made his way west and settled in Portland, Oregon. While attending college he enrolled in a jazz dance class to fulfill class credit obligations. Everything changed!
The next fifteen years were spent learning and teaching and studying as many forms of movement practice as vinn could find. He proceeded to study with Barbara Dilley of Naropa Institute and Judson Street fame, she taught the value of walking in the dance. Terry Sendgraff of Motivity, Berkeley, California, taught the value of sense orientation in the dance and the significance of the present alive moment . Deborah Hay informed him of the value of sinking into the earth to receive the benefits of higher consciousness. Gabrielle Roth imparted a supreme movement language which he spoke for a number of years on staff of Moving Center, NYC. Wilber Alix, supplied a depth of darkness to visualize the interior world of inspiration in Trance Dance. Douglas Dunn, of the Merce Cunningham Company showed how pedestrian movement is often the most extraordinary and absorbing. Eric Hawkins supplied a love for the release and gentle arc of motion. His dear friend and teacher Jose Brown of Changing, NYC told vinn of the power of truth in movement.
Vinn taught Sunday school for pre-school age at Living Enrichment Center, a member of New Thought Alliance of Churches. vinn studied for Chaplaincy and held space for people wishing to pray. He also received certification through the alliance as Prayer Practitioner and Spiritual Counselor.
Vinn has been on the road teaching Soul Motion, throughout the world, in studios and retreat centers. Through divine grace and dogged determination, vinn has developed a space for students to court the presence of the present moment."
To listen to an interview with Vinn, click here.