MEET

Jesus Acosta

With the doors to his living room wide open, Jesus allows the soothing sound of the River Dart to permeate his space. When it’s cold, a shared drink with a friend warms his heart just as much.

From his early years at the Mexican Writers’ School in Coyoacan to becoming a news reporter for the BBC in London and, more recently, a blogger documenting his journey as a dancer, he’s been driven by intense curiosity and a desire to communicate with authenticity.

In his twenties, he joined the congregation of Discalced Carmelites, a religious community focused on contemplation and a relationship with the divine rooted in silence and a closed community. Those years left a strong imprint on his soul, and you find him today moving from nature to people, from stillness to tango, from solitude to tribe. And back. It was a calling and a way to meet a deep craving for accessing the truth beneath, the core of things, glimpses of something he’s not always able to explain with words.

Another fundamental shift in his life occurred in Sweden, where he attended a year-long training with Embodied Intimacy. With Buster Radvik, Rachel Rickards and David Cates as mentors and teachers, Jesus started a deeper dive into the universe of trauma-informed practices and somatic experiencing. His relational life expanded again from that well.

Why Dance in Conversation

The need to feel each other and embrace runs deep in our communities. We know in our bones how fundamental it is for our survival to connect, touch, and move along with one another.

Dance in Conversation was born to relieve the sorrow of isolation. During the lockdown years, it became a confluence of perspectives, a community engaged in understanding how dancing transforms our lives. It evolved into a space for welcoming, attuning, and embracing.

More and more, I’m finding the sublime not in vertical prayers but in eye-to-eye, side to side, contact with others. In the horizontal, I often sense the divine.

Jesus co-hosted monthly online discussions with a global community of dancers for nearly four years.

These conversations have taken various forms, including online events, podcasts, and YouTube videos.

Notably, the emergence of a regular newsletter has brought to light a vibrant and evolving landscape, where what’s alive in Jesus’ dance comes to the surface every month.

With topics like relationships, intimacy, boundaries, attachment styles, presence, cabeceos and personal growth, Dance in Conversation became a space beyond learning particular steps or techniques.

It has always been, in essence, an investigation into what lies behind our movements on the dance floor.

Philosophy

Dancing is a door to belonging. There is truth, joy, and community in the rhythms of music and nature.
Whatever the tool, breathing, awareness of the felt sense, intentional movement or meditation, a daily practice for creating presence is fundamental.
Welcoming all aspects of ourselves, the parts that thrive and the parts that ache, is the foundation of our relational life.
Dancing from within, listening to and following primal rhythms, is a way to achieve sweet attunement and effortlessly flows in tango.
An environment of heartfelt, gentle touch and embracing heals everyone and transforms individuals.
Silence and pauses are crucial for finding what’s true, breathing into the moment and knowing where we are.

What kind of dance is the river inviting me to? And what’s the tempo residing in the silence of dawn and starry nights?