I’m a naturally shy one with an adventurous spirit. Having lived in a dozen cities on three continents, I’ve encountered a multitude of hearts from different cultures who continually expand my understanding of humanity.
As a kinesthetic learner, I resource myself by walking for hours in the woods, spending the afternoon by a waterfall, or diving into the sea. Bored with overly cerebral conversations, I light up when people take a stand to radically love themselves and others.
I am nurtured by my life partner, our adult children, our extended family, and friends.
I feel called to support those who
- want more creativity and to develop an artistic practice or connection for their well-being
- are experiencing a chaotic transition, whether personal or professional
- are on a journey of self-love
- want more presence in their day-to-day lives
Born in 1970, I grew up in Hennebont, Brittany, a traditional town and unlikely place for my parents to be running a discotheque, a cabaret, and a household full of rowdy cousins and drag queens. My parents, who could really do le rock ‘n roll, gave me the gift of dance, both at home and at ballet. This dance would take many forms and endure forever, and the radical inclusion and acceptance I experienced as a child would remain a beacon to my soul.
As an adolescent, I moved from town to town in the south of France with my family, an experience that taught me compassionate detachment and resilience. Shortly after receiving my French Baccalauréat in Montpellier, a cultural haven carved in Medieval stone, I emigrated to the United States with my future husband, musician-facilitator Thomas Vinton, and studied belly dance at the Middle Eastern Dance Exchange with Tamalyn Dallal and photography at Miami-Dade College in Miami, Florida. There, I set up my own printing lab and developed the patience and sensibility that daily attention to a particular craft can forge.
Five years later, along with Thomas, I danced myself deep into the heart of South Austin, Texas, raising two bilingual kids who would much later be diagnosed with significant neurodivergence and associated complex trauma, as would Thomas.
Involvement in the moms’ groups and community radio station KOOP, where Thomas and I produced countless quirky public service announcements with Jay Robillard, Bala Wong, and Lupe Cedillos, and broadcast the Radio Collage, a show that fit right in with our fellow programmers’ Adventures in Atzlan, Queer Waves, and The Lounge Show. There, I renewed my commitment to the radical acceptance and sincere appreciation of our world’s diversity.
Approaching my thirtieth birthday, I co-founded and led, with sculptor-painter Valérie Chaussonet, La Petite Provence, an arts-based preschool providing full immersion in French. Developing a learner-centered constructivist approach allowed me to dismantle top-down objectivist conditioning that I had internalized through formal education.
I HAVE CO-CREATED SEVERAL EDUCATIONAL ARTISTIC BUSINESSES, ENCOUNTERING NUMEROUS CULTURES WITH DIVERSE MINDSETS. EVERY NEW VENTURE HAS ALLOWED ME TO TUNE IN CLOSER TO MY CORE PASSIONS.
During this time, Thomas and I began doing business as Muse Circle, a moniker signifying “inspired community.” As our children began participating in our workshops, the four of us became known as the Muse Circle collective, and our collaboration continues to this day under that name.
I performed regularly with fellow KOOPer Zein Al Jundi’s World Music and Dance Productions troupe and studied a variety of international movement styles with her. This would lead to my training with Beto Pérez and becoming a first-generation Zumba instructor in Janet Ackerman’s Atlanta crew, where I specialized in teaching children and elders.
As an interpreter for Francophone refugees at Caritas, Austin, and later for Miller 3 International in Atlanta, Georgia, I deepened my understanding of colonial systems, whether by supporting a defendant in a court hearing or facilitating agricultural commercial negotiations between Mali and the United States.
While in Atlanta, I served as a liaison between clients and care providers at Pathways Transition Programs, a private mental health center for families in crisis, an experience that taught me some of the inner workings of the social services and psychological support spheres.
This opportunity came to me by way of Sunaina Rao Jain, a member of the Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, a sanctuary for free thought and expression. There, I became a worship associate and board member, offering personal reflections from the pulpit and art jamming with Drama Groupiez, an intergenerational drama group led by my twenty-plus-year-long mentor, Jaehn Clare, a force of nature who would produce and help me develop The Forty Flo Show. This three-ring circus of a birthday ritual, incorporating all the expressive arts into a sharing from the heart, taught me to radiate self-love as a means to foster love for family, community, and humanity.
During this period, I deepened connections within my own bodymind continuum and those of others by exploring silks with Nicole Mermans Vezenegho of the D’Air Aerial Dance Project and standalone pole dancing with Blake Dalton of the Core Performance Group. Blake introduced me to the work of Liz Lerman and her Critical Response Process, which became a foundation of my approach to sharing constructive feedback in the creative field and beyond.
I also learned new methods of arts-based language immersion as a summer-long artist in residence at Concordia Language Village’s Lac du Bois, Bemidji, Minnesota, and developed intra- and inter-personal skills during four months of large group awareness training (LGAT) with Summit Education based in South Florida.
Meanwhile, I became deeply involved in the 5Rhythms moving meditation practice developed by Gabrielle Roth and her colleagues, crewing weekly with Smith Hanes, Tracy Upton, and Susan Haygood of The Wave Atlanta for five years, serving internationally recognized facilitators who would go on to develop their own branches of conscious dance.
My service continued after moving to Nantes, France, where Thomas and I collaborated with Elisa Commeyne and Xavier Fauvel as artists in residence at L’Atelier du coteau, providing language immersion, expressive arts facilitation, and intergenerational stage performances, while continuing to serve visiting 5Rhythms facilitators and holding space for them by providing dance libre sessions during their absence.
In 2015, my husband and I made the difficult decision to leave my homeland yet again, and as our daughter was crossing the threshold into adulthood, she ended up being the one sending off her parents and brother, rather than the other way around.
Thomas and I collaborated with his brother and financier John Vinton, and his life and business partner, Stella Chong, to administer language immersion and expressive arts workshops to international schools, clubs, and families, which led to our developing teacher training programs that provided practical tools for teachers to bring music, dance, and dramatic arts into their classrooms. Our facilitation style also provided an accessible model to schools for implementing experiential learning.
This experience, along with 1000 hours on the dance floor, brought me to assert myself as a conscious dance facilitator and eventually a teacher trainer in this field as well. Thomas and I transitioned from serving on the crew of Sheryl Feniger’s Moving Steps weekly 5Rhythms sessions to co-founding Conscious Dance Hong Kong.
Along the way, I developed a special connection with sculptor May Yeung, whom I met through the contact improvisation community, that led to a series of creative collaborations lasting from 2016 to the present, the most recent of which took place at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. The experience of having a partner to create and perform with again and again has brought me confidence, perspective, a sense of deep trust, and especially joy.
While in Hong Kong, I continued studying various teaching methods, from Dalcroze with Sui Ming Chu, with whom I also sang in her community choir, to Village Music Circles with Arthur Hull and Kumi Masunaga. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I learned to master Zoom as an effective tool for online movement and meditation learning, attending weekly sessions with Amber Ryan of 360 Emmergence, Kathy Altman of Open Floor International, and Angela Spaxman of Insight Dialog.
In addition to providing rewilding workshops in nature with our frequent collaborator Liane Mah, Conscious Dance Hong Kong went online, and our sessions became a fusion of digital awareness and somatic presence. As we transitioned back to our regular brick-and-mortar space, Thomas and I provided facilitator training sessions, albeit somewhat hampered by our own serious bout of COVID-19, and handed over our practice to our crew and moved back to France, where we hoped to be closer to our children and other family members, as our second child had recently moved back to Europe themself.
A complex family situation brought us to travel extensively from 2022 to 2025. Our loved ones needed our care, and we danced our way, as participants and facilitators, from the United States to Spain, Germany to the Netherlands, and France back to Hong Kong. Finally, in the fall of 2025, we settled in Montpellier, where I had come of age nearly 40 years earlier. During this transitional period, I did a stint as a paid in-home care provider with APEF that resonated so deeply with me that I credit the experience to propelling me toward my current role as somatic coach.
You see, as the song goes, “T’aint What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It),” and given the four decades of loving service I had given to diverse communities, I experienced every moment of presence with the beneficiaries in my care as a blessed event, one that would make me more receptive than ever to the training I would receive from The Somatic School, an International Coaching Federation accredited institution of the utmost integrity based in London, England.
And as of February 2026, I am a Certified Somatic Life Coach with enough experience and love in my heart to serve humanity across its beautifully eclectic spectrum. I received my accreditation through The Somatic School.
You may book a discovery call here, subscribe to the newsletter and visit musecircle.com for current group activities that Thomas and I facilitate in Montpellier, on the road, and online.