We Still Move · For Black and Brown Wellness

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We Still Move, formerly Critical Mass Dance Company, cultivates Well-being, Resilience, and Joy through Movement and the Healing Arts.

Our Trauma-informed Work is by and for Women, Gender-expansive and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals from Black, Indigenous and Communities of Color.

Our offerings celebrate both Ancestral Wisdom and emergent practices, creating embodied spaces to reconnect with ourselves and each other.

Agunos, Misha

As a long-time social dancer, performer, dance instructor, and pole dancer, Misha is grounded and guided by the following question: “how can our spaces of connection, leisure, and pleasure cultivate day-to-day practices that orient towards collective liberation within ourselves, our communities, and the world at large?"

Misha aims to help folks feel more like themselves through trauma-informed embodiment spaces where people can bring offerings of rest, restoration, and reclamation to the altars of mind, body, and spirit.

Misha leads communications, administration and operations. She guides outreach, marketing and social media, as well as offers project management / logistical support. This is informed by her experiences in recovering from academia and navigating the world as a Black, queer, Filipina neuroexpansive* chronically ill survivor.

Instagram | LinkedIn | The Resilience Toolkit

Misha Agunos (she/her)

Director of Planning & Story Stewardship

Iraheta, Johanna

Johanna is deeply committed to encouraging healing in harmony with nature and collectivity across diverse cultures and life experiences. As a collaborator behind We Still Move public programs, Johanna advocates for inclusion and the preservation of marginalized communities' intellect, identity, and ancestral wisdom.

Through mediums such as art, movement, dance, theater, and storytelling, she dedicates herself to crafting immersive experiences that empower generations, promote healing, and fortify community resilience.

With a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Southern California, a B.A. in Central American Studies from California State Northridge, and 18 years of grassroots organizing, Johanna brings a rich blend of academic knowledge and community inspired expertise to her work.

Johanna Iraheta (she/her)

Director of Community Events

Kozak, Sophia

Sophia is the founding director of We Still Move (formerly CMDC) and creator of Dance from the Heart, a healing movement practice taught at the organization. She started out as a dancer and build a career as a community organizer working in educational justice and immigrant rights. After experiencing a period of intense burnout, Sophia embarked on her own healing journey to reconnect with herself and her Cuban culture using energy medicine and dance, especially salsa. This was deeply healing for her body and spirit and led her to develop her own business called Human Spirit Ascending for 10 years, where she offered reiki, coaching, counseling and collective care workshops.

In 2010, Sophia felt a deep calling to create a space where other women and nonbinary individuals could heal and embody change through movement. She blended her passions for dance, energy healing and social justice to develop Dance from the Heart and create We Still Move (formerly known as Critical Mass Dance Company (CMDC)) with a multi-racial collective of healers and organizers as a space for community care and social change through dance. Sophia has Masters degrees in Spiritual Psychology and Nonprofit Management.

Elena Sophia Kozak (she/ella)

Executive Director

Ortiz, Azucena

As Education Co-director, Azucena teaches Dance from the Heart through our community programs at nonprofits around Los Angeles and beyond.

Azucena brings 19 years of experience supporting diverse communities of families and individuals with non-violent communication and conflict resolution through parenting classes, retreats, and trauma-informed workshops. Her desire for her children to grow in a better world ignited her passion for healing and social justice. She also co-founded and co-directs The Healing and Justice Center.

Azucena Ortiz (she/ella)

Education Co-Director

Franco-Rahman, Maria

As Education Co-director, Maria teaches Dance from the Heart through our community programs at nonprofits with a focus on designing and holding space for those of us who make up the Social Change Ecosystem around Los Angeles and beyond. Maria was always THAT kid dancing at family gatherings. Her glittery red shoe (think Wizard of Oz) was once retrieved from a bush lining the dance floor after her cousin's Quinceñera.

She has been part of the movement to end gender based violence for 20 years, centering the healing and liberation of Black, Indigenous, Women of Color survivors, advocates, activists and our siblings at the margins. Maria is published in Traumatology as a co-author of a healing arts model designed to support resilience and long-term well-being as well as reduce stress related to trauma for survivors and frontline responders. Through her own private practice, Con Todo Corazon, she offers heart-centered holistic healing services designed to support personal and social transformation.

These days you can still find Maria dancing with cute shoes on or barefoot at workshops, in nature and in her kitchen with her husband and 3 year-old daughter. Maria is a daughter of Mexico and Jalisciense and Zacatacena parents, a piscean soñadora led by her heart and ancestors in service to the coming generations.

Maria del Rosario Franco-Rahman (she/ella)

Education Co-Director

Tucker, Rosalie

Rosalie offers support to the team through her gift and skill in grant-writing.

They are the Executive Director of Pieter Performance Space, as well as an Arts Administrator, Educator, Grant Writer and Advocate who has worked as a freelance grant writer for a variety of arts organizations across LA.

Rosalie has a BA in Choreography and Dance from UCLA and spent over a decade working in social Justice centered Museum Education.