Odessa Perez
LCSW, SEP, E-RYT
Odessa Avianna Perez is a trauma-informed somatic psychotherapist, embodiment and social justice facilitator who helps individuals and groups find right relationship with themselves, each other and the larger world.
Alongside her psychotherapeutic work, she facilitates dance, somatic and relational workshops and retreats throughout CA and internationally, including Dance Your Medicine in Costa Rica, and the upcoming Belonging and the Body with vicki abadesco! and Sage Hayes.
Odessa holds an MA in Somatic Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies and triple bachelor degrees in Dance, Theater Arts, and Sociology from Rutgers University. She has over 2 decades of movement and dance performance experience, and has been teaching Contact Improvisation as a form of self inquiry and relationship alchemy for over ten years . More recently, she has been developing and guiding her own trauma-informed resilience-building dance methodology called Resilient Body.
Odessa is deeply curious about how we can use dance and somatics to integrate our trauma for better relationship, community and planet. She works from a liberatory/healing justice lens, and understands the body and right relationship as central pillars in decolonizing work. As such, she invites her students and clients to experientially explore themes of safety, consent, attunement, building capacity for discomfort, power, interdependence and belonging.
Odessa is a cis gender, able-bodied, bicultural euro-boricua currently residing on unceded Kizh/Tongva land - aka Los Angeles, CA.She served on the Healers Collective for the Decolonizing Wealth Project and is currently the Inclusion & Belonging Lead for SoulPlay. She has a penchant for slow mornings and the tarot, and an unending love of oceans and hot springs.