Meet Arrowyn Ambrose of Pasadena

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arrowyn Ambrose.

Hi Arrowyn, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I began as an actress, majoring in Dance at University of California, Los Angeles, before leaving to pursue acting full time after completing a two-year Meisner conservatory. In 2004, while working as a series regular on a sitcom, I was invited to participate in Young Storytellers’ Big Show-a mentorship program pairing industry professionals with fifth graders to help them write five-page screenplays that are then performed live by professional actors. That experience changed my life.

I began mentoring, then head mentoring, and eventually joined the organization full time. Over nearly a decade as Program Director, I helped grow Young Storytellers from 15 schools to more than 50, developing a dynamic, kinesthetic storytelling curriculum and training model that’s still in use today. That early work-combining movement, improvisation, and personal narrative-also brought me back to dance and into long-form, Viola Spolin–based improvisational theater, where I discovered how profoundly therapeutic telling one’s story could be.

In 2015, I left to focus on older youth, particularly those who were system-impacted. I founded Story Tribe, where I led creative nonfiction workshops with at-risk, foster, and probation-involved youth, culminating in original group choral poems performed in abstract, audience-engaged formats. From there, I spent several years working in maximum-security prisons with the Center for Council, teaching Council-a deeply relational, storytelling-based practice-to incarcerated men. I also facilitated workshops in public and private schools, social justice organizations, probation camps, and mental-health programs.

In 2017, I was introduced to The Resilience Toolkit, an embodied, trauma-informed approach to nervous system awareness rooted in social justice. I became certified immediately and spent the next six years working with Lumos Transforms, supporting individuals, organizations, and communities through anti-oppression and anti-violence work. During that time, I completed my bachelor’s degree at Antioch University and was preparing to pursue a Master’s in Public Health at Brown University.

Then, after nearly twenty years away, I returned to dance.

That return-sparked by a documentary on jazz dance and reignited in classes connected to Ryan Heffington-shifted everything. Movement reawakened my sense of myself as a writer and performance artist, not only a facilitator. I left my role at Lumos, stepped away from Brown, and enrolled at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where I’m completing a Master’s in Depth Psychology and Creativity.

Alongside my studies, I launched a Substack, Abundance Whore, where I write candidly about complex PTSD, rupture, healing, and embodiment in real time. For my graduate thesis, I created This Sex Which Is Not One, an interdisciplinary performance art work developed in collaboration with seven artists, writers, and movers. The piece centered a group choral poem interrogating the extraction of femme pleasure from patriarchy, weaving text, choreography, music, and mimesis in the round with the audience. The response was overwhelming and affirmed my commitment to this form.

Since then, I’ve attended my first writers’ residency in the mountains of North Carolina, returned to dance performance, and am preparing for an upcoming residency at Desert Trade in Joshua Tree, where I’ll be creating a new, community-based collaborative work in the lineage of This Sex Which Is Not One. I’m also applying to PhD programs in Western Esotericism in the UK. These days, my deepest joy is writing braided essays that weave alchemy, mythology, archetypes, and personal narrative—work that explores what hurts, what heals, and what mesmerizes me, often through the lens of the erotic as articulated by Audre Lorde and Luce Irigaray, while holding space for endings, grief, and transformation.

I’m also the mother of a fourteen-year-old daughter who is my world, have a deeply respectful co-parenting relationship, and am held by a thriving dance community that has carried me through some of the hardest—and most beautiful—chapters of my life.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all. It’s been meaningful, but rarely smooth.

Much of my work has lived at the margins-working with system-impacted youth, incarcerated men, trauma survivors, and communities navigating violence, oppression, and loss. That kind of proximity to pain is both an honor and a cost. I spent many years over-giving, under-resourcing myself, and confusing service with self-erasure. Burnout wasn’t a single moment; it was cumulative.

There were also long stretches of profound identity confusion. I became very skilled at facilitation, leadership, and holding space for others—but somewhere along the way, I sidelined my own artistic voice. I told myself that my creativity was indulgent or secondary to “important” work. Returning to dance after nearly twenty years cracked that illusion open. It forced me to grieve how much of myself I’d abandoned in the name of being useful.

Financial instability has been another recurring challenge. Much of my work has existed outside traditional institutional pathways, which meant constantly patching together funding, contracts, and short-term roles. Choosing creativity, interdisciplinary practice, and embodied work has never been the most straightforward or secure path.

On a more personal level, I’ve navigated complex PTSD, relational ruptures, and periods of deep emotional and physical exhaustion-often while still showing up publicly as a leader, teacher, or artist. Learning how to live, work, and create without dissociating from my own body has been one of the hardest and most necessary lessons.

And yet-every rupture has redirected me closer to myself. The struggles clarified what I cannot sacrifice anymore: my body, my creativity, my erotic life force, my need for slowness, truth, and beauty. The road hasn’t been smooth, but it’s been alive. And I trust that kind of terrain now.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At the heart of my work is storytelling as an embodied, relational, and mythic practice. I work at the intersection of writing, movement, depth psychology, and performance, creating spaces where people can tell the truth of their lives, not just cognitively, but through the body, imagination, and relationship.

I specialize in interdisciplinary work that blends creative nonfiction, choral and collective writing, improvisational theater, and dance. Much of my practice draws from trauma-informed and nervous-system–aware frameworks, depth psychology, and mythological inquiry. I’m particularly known for crafting group choral poems and performances that transform individual stories into collective ritual with works that invite both performers and audiences into shared witnessing rather than passive consumption.

I’ve spent years working with people whose voices are often marginalized, such as system-impacted youth, incarcerated men, trauma survivors, and communities navigating oppression, and I bring that same rigor and care into my artistic work. What distinguishes my approach is that I don’t separate healing from art, or intellect from embodiment. Writing happens alongside movement. Insight emerges through play, rhythm, breath, and sensation. The work lives as much in the nervous system as it does on the page.

I’m most proud of my ability to create brave, intelligent, and surprisingly joyful spaces-places where humor, grief, erotic aliveness, and complexity can coexist. This Sex Which Is Not One, my recent interdisciplinary performance project, is a good example of that ethos: a collaborative, text-and-movement-based work interrogating femme pleasure outside of patriarchy, created with multiple artists and performed in close relationship with the audience. Seeing how deeply people recognized themselves in that work-how many said they felt less alone afterward-remains one of the most affirming moments of my career.

What sets me apart is my willingness to stay with contradiction. I don’t tidy experience into easy narratives or inspirational arcs. My work holds rupture alongside beauty, desire alongside grief, and theory alongside lived, bodily truth. I write and create from inside the questions, not after they’ve been resolved. That commitment-to honesty, to embodiment, and to collective meaning-making-is what continues to guide everything I do.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I’m not a natural networker at all and I’ve stopped trying to become one. What has worked for me is staying genuinely curious.

Instead of “following my bliss,” I’ve always followed my curiosity. I pay attention to what pulls at me, an idea, a class, a question, a piece of work that won’t leave me alone, and I go there without an agenda. That curiosity has consistently led me to the right rooms and, more importantly, the right people. When you’re actually interested, connection happens organically. You don’t have to perform or pitch yourself.

When it comes to mentors, I’ve learned not to force that relationship either. The mentors who mattered most in my life emerged through proximity and shared work, not cold outreach. I showed up consistently, listened deeply, worked hard, and stayed teachable. Over time, certain relationships naturally shifted from teacher–student or collaborator–collaborator into mentorship. Letting that unfold slowly created far more trust than asking someone to “be my mentor” ever could.

I also try to approach networking as relationship-building, not self-promotion. I ask good questions. I name what I’m genuinely moved by in someone’s work. I stay in touch in small, human ways—sending an article, a thank-you note, a sincere reflection after a shared experience. I don’t try to be impressive; I try to be present.

My biggest piece of advice is this: don’t contort yourself to fit into rooms that drain you. Find spaces that actually nourish your curiosity, your body, and your mind. If you stay engaged, generous, and honest, your people will recognize you. The connections that come from that place tend to last, and they tend to grow you.