Jean Finney is a storyteller, dancer, actor and poet who has lived, studied, taught, and performed in India, Europe, Mexico, and the United States. These sojourns include nine years of residence in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville. During one of her two extended return visits to these very special communities, Jean performed a full-length danced and narrated version of Savitri under the Matrimandir banyan tree, Sri Aurobindo’s inspired words serving as the exclusive source of her spoken text. She has also presented similar well-received inter-pretations of his visionary epic poem in Cambridge, Massachusetts and, most recently, at the Matagiri Center in the Catskills. 

Holding a Master of Education in Arts with a specialization in theatre studies, Jean has facilitated classes and workshops in dance, acting, myth and movement, public speaking, and playwriting. She is currently enrolled in an independent doctoral program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, focusing on the relationship between the sacred arts and psychology. Jean aspires to foster emotional health and personal growth through practicing a body-oriented integrated arts approach to creative expression and inner experience that is based on universal generative patterns of energy flow. 

As participants in the evolutionary play of the cosmos, we all possess a vast potential for creativity, she feels. We only need a gentle and joyous environment in which we are encouraged to discover and develop it. Jean also believes that trying to truly embody a spiritual teaching is important for our integral understanding, and is grateful for an opportunity to present her ideas in a forum that is grounded in this illumined poetry. 

About Jean's workshop 
Savitri In Action: Sacred Words and Movements 

We will begin with a brief but relaxing and refreshing warm-up for body, breath, and mind, and then use some simple creative movement exercises to explore the words, images, and feelings in selected lines from Savitri.