Meet Samantha-Jane Gray of Creating Body in Pacific Palisades

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samantha-Jane Gray.

Samantha-Jane, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The dancer in me might have started as a toddler. My mom tells a story of how she had to pull over on to the side of the road in our family VW van because I had climbed out my car seat and was standing on the back ledge. My hands were on the ceiling and I was shaking my diaper back and forth to my favorite song, while all the other children in the van were buckled up in their car seats, as they were told.

Flash forward to my teenage years, after a very balanced upbringing, I was very lucky to have parents who encouraged us to have a well-rounded education in sports, academics and recreations. This meant swimming practice before school, and ballet until 9pm at night, and homework somewhere in between or after. I chose to study a BA in Law and Psychology. The arts in South Africa were not thriving as our country was going through a post-apartheid evolution and a career in the arts did not seem viable. I loved the ethics of law, it was profoundly interesting to be in the unfurling of the constitutional state of South Africa and watch the judicial system transform to incorporate a societies new chosen values, to include customary laws of African cultures, equality and freedom. I lived through a compelling time in human history which I believe shaped me as a person and might have planted seeds for the veins of healing necessary in our lives.

After completing my degree, I still had a hunkering to follow my dream as a dancer, even though it seemed at the time, a frivolous career. But, I was supported by my community and went trailblazing into the unknown, leaving a very different career prospect in Law.

Again, I was privileged to travel to London, Toronto and Vancouver to audition and search for a dance program that would take an “older” student. Landing in the Arts Umbrella Professional Dance Graduate Program was the beginning of my life as a fully-fledged dancer, and I was hired straight out of this program to dance for a well-renowned choreographer. From there, I performed for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies and so went a virtuous career in ballet companies, creating my own pieces, and traveling to the USA, Germany and South Africa to perform. I was living the dream, albeit with the entrenched and expected challenges as an artist: to procure a well-paid position, stay healthy enough to perform full-time, and job security, to name but a few.

After eight years in Canada, and many trials and tribulations on the immigration front, I began to search for other options of where to live. A friend had mentioned the Green Card Lottery for the USA, and I entered it, with nothing to lose. This is where I really began to believe in magic. I happened to be picked, processed, and after two years of uncertainty and some more thrilling stories, about having to leaving La Bayadere for the South African Ballet Theatre, and traveling to Montreal, and getting paperwork lost in the mail with three days to spare, in 2014, I entered the USA, in New York, with an unwritten chapter about to begin, starting from what felt like zero again.

A life in California seemed worth it all. I had a connection to a GYROTONIC®️ Studio in Los Angeles and began laying the groundwork for teaching and dancing. The universe has been utterly generous in the community that surrounds me in Los Angeles, my clients are a huge inspiration to me, and I am honored to be part of their lives on a daily basis. My peers are passionate, well-rounded people with strong missions and good work ethic and I have been able to integrate nature into my life in a way that I never thought was possible. California dreaming is my life: I have a 2-hour lunch break sometimes, in which I can sneak down to Sunset Beach or Topanga and snag a surf in the sun with dolphins on a weekday. I have learnt that holding space for the things that feed your soul, actually make you more effective in this business, even though it may go against the “work yourself to the bone” philosophy. This aspect, I have to learn to trust.

After five years of living and loving in Los Angeles, with only a small dose of fear and loathing, Creating Body was formulated as a brand to grow the philosophy of a movement lifestyle. It represents synthesis of all aspects of our Californian lives. The dancer, the artist, the teacher, the student, the nature lover, the adventurer, the seeker.

The name came from a brainstorm session about the two things that drive my passion for learning and expanding.

The “Body” is what we live in, our vessel for our consciousness and a healthy one is what we need to truly grow and be well.

The “Creating” is the artist that creates through the body as a dancer, but it also signifies that we are in constant process. Everything we do, we eat, we think, we are literally creating our bodies, and on a macro level, our lives.

I’m holding the vision at the very beginning stages of this brand, and already I feel the excitement of how having your own business creates a canvas where anything is possible. I have learnt a lot about running a corporation in California, being an employer, trademarking and marketing and much more to come. I am not growing my business, my business is growing me.

Has it been a smooth road?
This adventure has challenged me on many levels, being away from family, is something I continue to re-assess at every juncture of my life. Whether the perceived opportunities here are worth the sacrifice of being away from home. It is not easy.

Being a dancer, had its innate challenges and learning to recognize when the original dream was not serving the new version of myself that was being revealed.

Starting my own company has tested my self worth, my confidence and my conviction of if what I offer is of value to my community. But I am blessed to be able to even have these as obstacles in my life, as my South African roots will constantly remind me.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Creating Body story. Tell us more about the business.
Prior to the exciting new launch of “Creating Body”, I specialized, and still do, in long term committed private clientele, training the body with the basis of pilates, yoga and GYROTONIC®️ movement, layered with embodiments and mediation principles that supports transformation in the subtle body, re-patterns the nervous systems and increases the fluidity of the facia. My goal is to create an integrated body, a body that is open, adaptable and able to learn.

The true transformation can take place in the body when we learn to move authentically, from our instinctual moving nature, athletes are a prime example of this. It is the presence in the body that is ultimately healing. Integrating this perspective is a process, and sometimes challenging to work in this way, when so much of society doesn’t support this way of being. I am by no means a master at it at all, but I hold this as an aspirational philosophy for us all.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Apart from the advancements in food technology, sports science, and ever increasing scientific proof of consciousness in neuroscience, in the next 5 to 10 years, we undoubtedly will still have bodies that will need to be moved and lived into the best of our abilities. I also stand in the best hopes that we will be doing better for nature and the environment. On another level, I am intrigued already, to observe how the knowledge of ancient civilizations, like Chinese medicine, meridians and meditation, mayan healing, and stargazing are gaining more reverence in the scientific world. It will be an interesting time where the gaps between spirituality and science are closing and I cannot wait for these future conversations.

I am the USA Liaison for an additive manufacturing (3D Printing Technologies), called METAL HEART. These new technologies enable us to manufacture titanium plates to complete specificity for implants, replacements and reconstructive orthopedic surgeries. I am growing with this company with the vision of being able to apply the movement knowledge and work with the medical professionals to learn the uniqueness in these rehabilitation aspects. I am in my mid 30’s now, with a creaky dancer hip, a torn meniscus from skiing, dancer toe bunion, a and deviated septum from surfing and it seems like I am going to be needing to be Creating my new Body with Metal Heart!

Pricing:

• Self Care for the Subtle Body Workshop in Venice Feb 23rd , 2020 • $55 for a single ticket • $100 for 2
• Creating Body Integration • Private Session • $180/hour
• Creating Body Home Studio Online Subscription $9.99/month
• Creating Body Tool Kit • $20

Contact Info:

• Address: White Lotus Gyrotonic, 863 Swarthmore Avenue, Suite G Los Angeles, California
• Website: www.creatingbody.com
• Email: connect@creatingbody.com
• Instagram: @creatingbodyhomestudio
• Facebook: @creatingbodyhomestudio
• Other: www.creatingbodystore.com

Image Credit:
Kelly Bonsack (Studio Photos); Ryan Stuart (Underwater photo); Mallory Morrison (Dance Photos)

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