Daily Inspiration: Meet Lisa Adeva Samoy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Adeva Samoy

Hi Lisa Adeva, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Troy, NY not long after my parents immigrated to the U.S. My mother was doing her physicians residency and my father was searching for work in the field of engineering. I had visions of theatrical performance since I can remember. I would move my body in ways that made my parents concerned, and I was placed in leg braces as a toddler. This was one of the first of many limitations and confinements placed upon me. By the time I was 5, we migrated to Florida and I had two younger sisters. Two of us would embody imaginary friends for our youngest sister.

I longed to dance, to take class, and to perform. My parents saw no value to this and denied me dance classes. They did allow me to learn music, though my father terrorized my practice sessions until they were non-existent. I started taking piano lessons in third grade and violin in fifth grade. I took piano till i graduated high school and violin through a year of undergrad with a partial scholarship. I performed in the spring musical during my second semester of undergrad and changed my major from liberal studies to theatre performance and dropped out of violin and orchestra, giving up my partial scholarship. I was finally able to take all the dance classes I wanted.

In the meantime, my body was in constant pain, though use to this. When I was seven or eight years old, I was thrown up in the air by my cousin, supposedly to land on the bed as he had been playing with my sisters in this manner. I hit the floor landing on my head, feeling the impact on my skull, neck, and my thoracic spine. My mother came around the corner, screaming at us for playing dangerously, never checking if I was okay. We all scrambled away so as to not get into further trouble. I paid no further attention at that time to any injuries that may have occurred. I recall how painful playing the violin was for me from the beginning. It was always excruciating. But it was the creative outlet I was allowed, so I continued.

Through my adult years I have given birth to three boys. I had spans of time working as a waitress, then a cook, then a bartender. My body took the wear and I was in more and more pain. I stumbled onto the art of spoken word and devoted six years to my embodied voice in performance. I moved to Colorado and went to grad school for a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre: Contemporary Performance at Naropa during which my second son was born. After my third son was born through three cycles of pitocin over three days to induce his labor, my connection to my body was all but severed. I sought whatever healing modalities I could access.

My western family doctor and orthopedists could find no reason for my pain, thus had no treatment options for me. I searched massage and acupuncture, eventually finding Rolf Structural Integration. During my first ten-series, I was reconnected with my body and my tissue was contacted more deeply and specifically than it ever had been before. By the end of this series, I decided to learn this modality.

In 2012, I began my practice of Earthbody Structural Integration. In 2014, I began receiving sessions in Core Synchronism from Alyssa Gillespie in Boulder. My healing journey continued to grow and was accelerated with this energetic modality. I began to train and went through four levels between 2015 and 2019. I established my practice in Nederland, Colorado between 2014 and 2022. The pandemic made me move to working out of my home in Ward and to make location visits when appropriate. I’m preparing to transition back into a space in Nederland by 2025.

In 2024, I have also been restarting my performance work. I have performed my poetry at two festivals, feature shows and collaborations in coffee shops, breweries, as well as a bi-monthly offering entitled “Goddess Gospel” at Longmont’s Helios Public Art House, which I host as well as curate an invited special guest. I also presented at three private showcases at Folk Alliance International in Kansas City, Missouri.

Through years of healing, single motherhood, starting and restarting business, art, and so many facets of life, these branches all emanate from the purpose and intention of embodiment. Aside from offering body and energywork, I also lead embodiment practices for individuals and groups, as well as ecstatic dance and performance directing and choreography. The name “Earthbody” expresses my knowledge that we are members of earth and that as we align with this consciousness in mind and movement, we heal the world…

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been bumpy, catastrophic, as well as and epic adventure peppered with moments of bliss.

The struggles have led me to my healing practices. The healing has led me to liberation in expression and life path.

I have been through two traumatic marriages and have learned that I cannot heal those who are unable to self-reflect and face their traumas and addictions. I must take myself out of abusive situations and move forward for my own welfare and for my kids. Sorting through my own CPTSD and figuring out neurodivergence give space and understanding of ways to prevent further damaging relationships and situations.

I was a New Orleans resident when Hurricane Katrina inundated much of the city. It was during the two and a half months that I was locked out of the city that I visited Boulder and Naropa University and decided it was time to go to grad school.

Single motherhood in Colorado has been quite lonely with no relatives here and an alien climate. Being a tropical native, I’ve really tried to love these winters and this terrain. The hot springs have been a nurturing blessing to my body and soul.

Being a mountain resident and woman of color, finding my footing in performance opportunities in Colorado has been a disheartening struggle. In the past several years I have attended retreats and workshops, weaving with community. Though there are some opportunities, I hope to see this region open to more diversity in expression as well as in race and ethnicity. Representation is everything.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Aside from my healing practice, I am also a poet, dancer, actor, ceramicist, and abstract painter.

-My poetry is expression of the processing of personal and societal struggle, the location of a feeling and palpation of the specifics of emotion through word and thought, the celebration of connection with nature, the transmutation of darkness into light, the restoration of tethers between humanity and our mother earth.

-My dance is centered in contemplative embodiment, whether I am moving to music, leading community session, guiding an individual to their own body as instrument, or choreographing for a specific performance. I search for deep authenticity and experience that beginning from the depths of one’s organs allows them to access the beauty of their very own dance in a surprisingly quick time.

-I have experience and education in stage acting and directing, though I have done some film and t.v. extra and commercial work. I love connecting community in theatrical performance. I have done this several times with Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” as well as Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Aria da Capo.” Activism and ritual have been key motivations for my theatre making projects.

-In my community clay studio, I am known for building sculpture and functional items by hand. Often, I ask the clay what it wants to be, then proceed from there, rarely with a solid plan or intention, always ready to change direction or function. Sometimes, images and feelings arise before I touch the clay, then the forms take place as I connect. My pieces take a lot of time to create because of this process. It’s not uncommon for me to spend eight to ten hours or more on one piece.

-I love to play with the flow of paint on canvas, layering colors that I can almost taste, until it is time to dance them into abstract form. The moment when they are finished arises from a feeling inside me. These pieces are so satisfying to make.

What sets me apart from others is my childlike exploration. Rather than attempting to emanate some style or genre of work, I uncover authenticity by unlearning habits of ego and expectation, releasing fear, becoming younger as I mature, more and more liberated to express what arises in the moment.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Amber Burnham and Jeff Linn were my key teachers at the Guild for Structural Integration.

Alyssa Gillespie and Robert Stevens are my mentors amazing for Core Synchronism.

Barbara Dilley has been my Contemplative Dance Practice guru and most understated spiritual teacher.

Wendel Beavers and Erika Berland are my developmental and somatic movement professors.

Vanessa Skantze, Sharoni Stern Siegel (r.i.p.), Katsura Kan (grrr), Mizu Desierto, Diego Piñon, Atsushi Takenouchi have been profound butoh inspirations.

Blue Moon Dance Company and Anne Burr Dance in Boulder and New Orleans, respectively, were dance family I always long for.

Mark Alan Bennett (r.i.p.) was my motivating adventure and poetry love partner who broke me out of my isolated contemplation and spiraled me out into the world for better or worse.

Kimberly Carravone, ND, author, mathematics PhD, mother, friend, metalhead, superhuman pulled me forward in my healing practice and always encouraged that I was worth more. I learned so much from this amazing being and went to Big Island for the first time at her suggestion to attend a Naturopathic Retreat in order to kick hpv, which I did. She also initiated that I go to Alyssa Gillespie.

Diana Underhill graciously opened Tadasana Mountain Yoga in Nederland to me for embodiment trainings and ecstatic dance.

Jamée Loeffler and Ivan Kende so generously host me and my Goddess Gospel offerings at Helios Public Art House in Longmont.

Phil Melançon and Phant Will at the Neutral Ground in New Orleans thankfully endured and participated in my theatrical endeavors.

Clay Rose, my bff, inspired, magnetized, and motivated me to return to performance. He said, “You have to really want it.”
I do.

Phoebe Hunt played virtuosic violin with me when I asked in workshop, then told me there was nothing else I needed to do, that my art was complete, that I just had to put it out there and ask people, like her, to play with me. She has since, invited me to her stage as well as played with me on mine on several occassions.

Rebecca Lundberg sees me and supports me and cheers me on even though I do not befriend the wheel often in her wonderful pottery class.

Olivia Newby Doll shows up, hears me, celebrates and dances madly with me, near or far.

Heather Gray, my goddess, always receives and gives and gets it, fully.

Nadine Sekerez created the Upstream Songwriter’s Retreat, which has become a flourishing community. She has encouraged and included me, putting all of us onstage and in the studio, even though I still don’t write songs. Long live the Heliosphere!

Emmy Link/Sneaki Bandit invited me to my first public spoken word performance, outside retreats and open mics, since moving to Colorado 18 years ago.

Rachel Maxann, who upon her request for a performance spot, incited the first Goddess Gospel to occur.

Zuki and Irie, my delightful best buds who abide my pace, in mania and in sloth, are wonderful built in roadies and backup (esp. Zuk! Irie will come along, I trust), and someday I will surely roadie for them!

Pricing:

• Rolf Method/Core $150/hour with hour and a half initial minimum for rolfwork
• $10-20 sliding scale for Goddess Gospel
• call for bookings and artwork

Contact Info:

• Website: https://earthbody.org
• Instagram: lisamoyadeva
• Facebook: Lisa Adevathereal Samoy

Image Credits
Sonya Nguyen
Olivia Newby Doll
Alex Miller