Taja Will (pronouns Taja/they) is a queer, soft femme, cinnamon skinned, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee, homebased on the stolen and occupied lands of the Dakota (Minneapolis, MN). Taja is a healing justice consultant and practitioner, holistic therapist, choreographer, performer and Bruja.
As a healing justice practitioner Taja works with individuals, collectives, and organizations as a consultant, educator/facilitator, and mediator. They bring a trauma informed, intersectional and equity lens to anti-oppression work. They believe the work of dismantling white body supremacy can happen through relationships, through nervous system co-regulation, and by rigorous awareness and reparative action as one becomes aware of how power and privilege exist in their lives.Â
Photo credit: Trista Marie Photography
When asked about what their work means to them, Taja shares the following:
"All facets of my work center embodiment and identity. I engage modalities of cultural somatics, improvisational movement, and healing from trauma with self, with others/community and the earth. I believe interdependence with our community and cultural ecosystems is collective healing. My primary strategy for making contemporary dance is improvisation and everyday magic."
"I am interested in indigenous solidarity and decolonizing the hierarchy of relationships with power, privilege, wealth and access. Co-learning, co-teaching, co-living, and so much more are possible in radical ways. Ways which potentially lead to the dismantling of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, the gender binary, and internalized colonialism. I believe radical dream mapping expands what we know to be true, it engages artistic imagination and from there we can, perhaps, emerge a new world."
Taja was recently commissioned to choreograph a dance for camera which can be viewed below:
"how you see me honor you"
"My artistic work utilizes ritual as an invitation to locate or relocate connection with ancestors, of blood, of artistic lineage, of political lineage, of queer lineage, of spiritual lineage, of earth and plant lineages.
"My fellow artists, queers, QTBIPOC community- I see you, I love you, I am grateful for you. We need each other, we deserve each other."
To support Taja's ongoing artistic work and community care work please donate via Venmo @Taja-Will or PayPal using tajawill@gmail.com
To learn more about their healing justice consulting or to hire Taja, check out their website https://www.tajawillartist.com/ or email directly at tajawill@gmail.com to set up a consultation.Â
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