PHILOSOPHY

Our Mission

Circle of World Arts is dedicated to teaching individuals some of the tools necessary to achieve personal peace and lessen the probability of conflict through group cultural efforts based on dance, movement, artistic expression, and sports.

We cannot always eliminate causes of stress and discord but we can change our emotional and physical responses to them. Studies now prove when people experience trauma, they not only experience a sense of emotional deregulation but also a feeling of physical immobilization. With integration of the movement arts, physiological changes are produced through transformation of heart-rate variability, weight loss, depression, anxiety, fear, and stabilization of mood changes. All these benefits are indicative of greater capacity for emotional and thus a greater sense of peace and higher probability of conflict resolution.

In the context of cultural peacebuilding, acting and moving in synchronicity with others can increase cooperation and collectivism among group members. CWA provides a means to promote nonviolent resolution to conflict and a creative alternative to solving problems from the level of the individual which translates to a greater sense of peace among communities.

The movement arts are the ideal medium for openly addressing boundaries of culture and politics, resolving conflict, building consensus and waging peace. The arts provide participants with powerful opportunities for transformation through reflection and self-expression, while the collaborative process allows them to take their individual cultural and political boundaries and move across to new boundaries and apply this in everyday life.

Circle of World Arts is founded on the conviction that when people come together to collaborate and create, all boundaries of culture and politics dissolve. The human drive to create is universal -- and more powerful than the forces of racism, fanaticism, and intolerance that threaten to tear the world apart.